


beautiful, wonderful, don't you ever change

by frankoceansmoonriver



Series: i'll find your lips in the street lights [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s preserum steve time travels to be with 2024 bucky in summary, Art Student Steve, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Gay Bucky Barnes, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, a fic for myself and maybe three other people, bucky loves taylor swift, i can't even call this an endgame fix it fic, if you choose to read this i apologize?, post Endgame, steve flirts with thor at one point, steve is like thirteen years younger than bucky, this is just self indulgent bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21717115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankoceansmoonriver/pseuds/frankoceansmoonriver
Summary: It takes Bucky a minute to understand. The man on the platform holding the shield is having trouble keeping his grip on it. He keeps almost dropping it, and he’s grimacing with the effort. His arms and legs are skinny as anything and he’s terribly small but he’s got Steve’s hair and Steve’s little pink mouth.Or, the one where the winter soldier has a tiny boyfriend.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: i'll find your lips in the street lights [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565269
Comments: 12
Kudos: 176





	beautiful, wonderful, don't you ever change

**Author's Note:**

> on god, this is the most self indulgent thing i've ever posted
> 
> please enjoy bucky having a tiny boyfriend, the only reason i've written this at all.

_I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now... and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness.”_

Maurice, EM Forster

Steve sits on their bed. His bed, really. After all, Bucky hasn’t been in this bed in five years. Still, Steve’s remains larger than life, but his eyes are tired.

Bucky says it before he can lose his nerve.

“You could stay there if you wanted. You could go get your girl. Sam would understand. I wouldn’t mind.”

Steve turns and eyes Bucky. “Is that so?”

“I’m just saying. You could. You deserve that life Steve.” Bucky wants to bite his tongue off for saying it out loud, but he would hate himself more if he didn’t say it at all.

“One without you? You’re back for a week and you’re already trying to get rid of me?”

Bucky knows Steve is teasing, but he feels like he’s swallowing a mouthful of blood when he speaks next.

“No, never. I just want you to be happy. Haven’t you given enough?”

Steve laughs. “I think so. But I ain’t leavin’ you Buck. I just got you back.”

“It just feels like you should have that. Something quiet. Something nice like that. She’d be so happy.”

Steve puts his forehead against Bucky’s shoulder. It reminds Bucky of when they were kids. “Did I ever tell you about your eighteenth birthday?”

“Yeah, you did. You had to tell me all about it because I was too drunk to remember,” Bucky says, letting a little smile spread across his face.

Steve laughs. “Yeah, exactly. But there was one detail I left out.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Steve says and his voice shakes. “You know, I was ready to take on an entire army of monsters alone and somehow this is scarier than all of that.”

“The fuck you talkin’ about Rogers?”

“I kissed you at the end of that night. I never should have done it. But I did.”

“Did I kiss you back?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Steve whispers, but he says it with such conviction too. You fell asleep five minutes later.”

“Why you tellin’ me now?”

“Because I’m sick of hiding from you.”

“Where you been hidin’ Steve?”

Steve picks his head up off of Bucky’s shoulder, and he looks Bucky in the eye. He doesn’t speak but he takes Bucky’s head in his hands and kisses his forehead. Bucky can’t move or speak. He shuts his eyes and tries to memorize this feeling, but his memory is shot to shit so often.

He must make some pained sound because Steve moves away and asks “Okay, Buck?”

“Yeah Stevie, just fine.”

“Should I not be doing this?”

Bucky hasn’t been touched this kindly in eighty years, and he can only recall a pair of strong hands in a dark, dark tent. He knows he used to fool around with men during the war, when he had to stay quiet because his life depended on it. “If you stop, I’ll kill you myself.”

That gets a laugh out of Steve.

Then Steve does the impossible and tilts his head and kisses Bucky.

It’s soft and sweet just like Bucky imagined it would be, because it’s Steve after all. But it’s sad too, and as much as it kills him to, Bucky pulls away. “Why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?”

“Promise I’m not. I would never leave you all alone Buck.”

Bucky shudders, then grips the fabric of Steve’s shirt. “Why now?” he asks, then kisses Steve again. Just in case.

“I know. I never could get our timing right. It was always some damn thing.”

“How long, huh? How long have you felt like this, or was I making it all up?”

“Since I knew what love _was_. I must’ve been thirteen the first time I wanted to kiss you.”

Bucky sounds like he’s being strangled, he can’t believe the sound that has come from him. “Oh, God.”

Steve runs a hand up Bucky’s shirt, all determined and beautiful and Bucky wants, god dammit, he fucking wants, but his body has other ideas. He’s shaking. He doesn’t know what exactly has triggered it. It’s probably just the idea that Steve wants him at all, after all of this. He can’t stop shaking.

“Buck?” Steve says, so soft and clear. Bucky shakes his head.

“I always hated what they did to you, you know? What they did to both of us. God, what did they do to us?”

“I know sweetheart,” Steve says, whispering softly. Bucky gasps at the word. He can’t bare it.

“You were so small, and I was so much smaller than I am now. I don’t know who I am. I wanna be him again.” Bucky is rambling. He feels as though that kiss has broken him apart. “I’m not him, I wanna be him.”

“You _are_ him, Bucky.” Steve leans down and kisses Bucky again. Bucky is shaking something violent.

“You know I’m not.” His throat feels like its closing. Steve holds him tight and whispers reassurances to Bucky.

Bucky feels so small and safe with his head tucked under Steve’s chin. He has wanted Steve so long and now that he has the opportunity he’s too screwed up to do anything about it. He clings to Steve, trying to breathe properly.

He kisses Steve’s face over and over but he is completely unable to do anything more. He wants but his head feels too heavy and his body is very, very far away. Steve doesn’t seem to mind, just holds him through it.

In the morning Steve will go back eighty years in time and Bucky will stay.

**

Banner flips the switch, and Steve disappears. Bucky blinks, has to swallow hard on the knot forming in his throat. Steve isn’t coming back, he just knows it. Despite the night before, when Steve had kissed him to sleep, Bucky doesn’t believe that Steve will be back.

Five seconds pass. Then ten. “He should have been back by now,” Banner says. Sam is panicking.

“Bring him back! What’s wrong!?” Sam demands. Bucky doesn’t know how he’s gonna tell him that their best friend isn’t coming back, no matter what he may have said.

“No, no we’re okay, we got him!” Scott says. There’s a brief flash, and then Steve is standing on the platform.

It takes Bucky a minute to understand. The man on the platform holding the shield is having trouble keeping his grip on it. He keeps almost dropping it, and he’s grimacing with the effort. His arms and legs are skinny as anything and he’s terribly small but he’s got Steve’s hair and Steve’s little pink mouth.

No way. No fuckin’ way.

It’s Steve. There’s no denying that. He drops the shield and his chest heaves from the effort. It’s _Steve_. He coughs a couple times trying to catch his breath. His bony elbows jut out of his shirt sleeves, and his big blue eyes are looking around, trying to figure everything out. It’s Steve, it’s Steve it’s

“STEVIE?!” Bucky shouts. Steve’s head whips around. All hundred pounds of him turn to look. The others do too, but Bucky isn’t paying attention to them. He’s looking at his little Stevie, who has a smile blooming across his face, and he’s looking at Bucky like he’s the answer to all of life’s questions. Bucky’s chest tightens. “What the _fuck_ you doin’ here, huh?!”

Steve drops the shield and leaves it on the platform, then breaks into a run towards Bucky. He’s smiling so fiercely and he’s running to Bucky at top speed. He’s gonna give himself a god damn asthma attack, but neither of them care because Steve launches himself off the ground and flings himself into Bucky’s arms.

It catches Bucky by surprise but he still catches Steve. Steve curls his skinny arms around Bucky’s neck and wraps his legs around Bucky’s waist. Bucky holds him tight and spins him around until Steve starts laughing so hard Bucky is actually worried he’ll start coughing again.

He lets Steve down and then holds his face in his hands. For the first time in a hundred years Bucky looks _down_ at Steve. “Stevie, what are you doing here?”

“Are you happy to see me?” Steve asks, and he’s teasing but it’s also a legitimate question, his smile faltering just a little, almost unnoticeable.

“I can’t believe I’m stuck with your ugly as hell mug again,” Bucky says, and Steve laughs, but Bucky runs a thumb over Steve’s cheekbone. “I’m overjoyed, you dumb fuckin’ asshole. You got a lot of explaining to do.”

“I’ll tell you everything, but long story short is that future me came back and told me that you needed me. So here I am.” Steve takes a deep breath. “Is that really you under all that hair?”

“Shut the hell up. I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe it.” Bucky thinks his lips are gonna fall off from smiling so hard.

“Me neither. So this is 2024 huh?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Weird. I’m a hundred and six years old.” Steve looks around again, and belatedly notices the shield lying on the platform. “Oh!”

Steve walks back over to the platform. Scott looks too confused to form a sentence, but Banner is smiling and Sam is looking at Steve in awe.

“Hi Sam,” Steve says. “I’m sorry I don’t know you yet, but this is for you.” Steve bends down and lifts the shield again. He’s struggling a lot to hold it. Sam takes pity on him and takes it from his hands. “He said it’s yours. He said you’re the best man for the job.”

“He?” Sam asks, holding the shield awkwardly.

“Sorry. Me. I said. I said it. It can get a little weird to think about.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Sam says, then looks to Bucky. Bucky sees the hurt in Sam’s eyes, and Bucky realizes that though he’s on cloud nine, Sam has just lost one of his best friends, because this Steve has never met Sam Wilson.

Bucky walks back up to everyone else. Steve goes back to his side and is smiling at Bucky like he’s the sun. Bucky puts Steve in a headlock, and all the sudden Steve fits right under his arm just like he used to, he fits there somehow all over again. Bucky bends down and kisses the top of Steve’s head, just because he can’t help himself.

“Is that Captain Rogers?” Scott whispers to Bruce, and Bucky can hear them but he doesn’t care.

“Yeah, but that’s not our Captain. That Captain belongs to Sergeant Barnes.”

They sit in the grass with the sunshine falling into Steve’s hair. He looks so happy to have his life flipped upside down.

“I missed you so much Buck.”

“What do you mean? Did I go work a shift and you didn’t see me for a few hours?”

“No. You’ve been gone for months.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. I was alone in Brooklyn wondering every minute if you were dead. You know when the other me, when he found me, he cornered me outside our apartment and the sun was just setting. I thought he was there to just beat the shit out of me. I did try to hit him.”

Bucky starts laughing. He throws his head back. “What did he do?”

“He rolled his eyes. He didn’t even flinch. I was embarrassed, I won’t lie. But he said ‘This is about Bucky Barnes’ and all the fight just. Left me. I thought he was going to tell me that you were dead.”

“Awe Stevie. I’m sorry.” Bucky takes Steve’s hand in his metal one and squeezes.

“Bucky, you have a metal hand?”

Bucky pulls away like he’s been burned. He feels sick. “I…”

“Oh no, no, I’m so sorry! I was kidding! I know you have a metal arm. I was only joking.”

Bucky shuts his eyes and then lets himself smile. “God dammit. You little punk.” He shoves lightly at Steve’s shoulder. Steve laughs.

“Jerk.”

“So, what exactly did he tell you?”

“I took a lot of convincing. I mean, yeah we have the same face but I just didn’t believe it at first. But then he told me things. Things only I knew.”

“Like what?” Bucky says, letting his curiosity run away with him.

“He told me things I’ve thought about you,” Steve says, very quiet and averting his eyes. Steve blushes and Bucky can feel his own face going hot. He doesn’t push it. “But he told me about how I got so big. He told me about the war. He told me you did die, but not really. He told me everything.”

“He told you _everything_?” Bucky asks. 

“Bucky. I know what happened to you. It’s why I’m here.”

“You know I killed hundreds of innocent people? You know I killed women and children?” Bucky feels like if he doesn’t get it out of the way now, he’ll turn to chicken shit and try to pretend it’s all fine.

“I know you did. I also know you didn’t want to. I also know you’ve been through a hell of a lot more than any person ever should.”

Bucky keeps his mouth steeled shut. He doesn’t know how to continue.

“Hey. Look at me,” Steve says, squeezing Bucky’s metal hand again.

“We could send you back if you want. I’m not. I’m not well. Besides, there’s so much for you to do. So many people you meet. You have so much to see and do and be. You can’t not do all of that just because of me.” Then Bucky realizes. “So wait, where are you in the past?”

“Um. He switched with me. He’s doing it again.”

“He’s what? _You’re what_?”

“I know. But he said he had to save you. Past you. He said he needed to get you back.”

“This is not okay. He should never have done that. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that a future version of me told me that you needed me. This me. So I went. And I don’t know about the other me, but he had his mind pretty set.”

“What is wrong with you? Both of you!”

“There’s just the one of us, Buck.”

“But it’s all too much! It’s too fuckin’ much!” Bucky runs his hands through his hair. “Steve, you can’t go to war again, the same fuckin’ war! How would that even work! Is he just gonna go find Erskine again?”

“Would you do it for me?” Steve says all matter of fact.

“Yes,” Bucky replies immediately. “Of course.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Bucky shakes his head. He can’t just shout that Steve is all that is good in this fucked to shit world. He can’t tell him that Bucky is not right and Bucky isn’t twenty two and mostly harmless.

“I just didn’t think you were coming back at all,” Bucky admits, and lets his shoulders sag.

“Why would you think that?”

“Like I said Steve. There was a lot you were supposed to do. There’s a girl you’re supposed to meet.”

“I heard. I don’t care. Just tell me, are you happy I’m here? Really?”

Bucky laughs humorlessly. “Steve, I’m over the moon.”

“I chose this. I want to be here. I want to be here with you.”

“Okay pal.”

Steve takes the metal hand back in his own. “Can you feel this?”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s hand whirrs under Steve’s touch. Steve runs his index finger across Bucky’s knuckles. He smiles at Bucky’s hand, which does something funny to Bucky’s chest.

“Is this okay?” Steve asks, and laces their fingers together. They’ve held hands before, but for some reason this makes Bucky feel like he may die right on the spot. Steve is running his thumb softly down the left side of Bucky’s hand. The metal limb doesn’t phase him in the slightest.

“I missed you too Steve,” Bucky whispers.

Steve keeps their fingers intertwined and leans his forehead against Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky puts his other hand on the back of Steve’s head and plays with his hair, so fine and soft and shining in the sunlight.

They go back to Steve’s apartment which, is weird to think about because the Steve it belonged to isn’t here. But it’s still Steve’s all the same.

They are in Brooklyn, together. That’s all that matters.

Steve looks around at his own apartment that he has no memory of. The things are his, and he does not know them, but he likes them all the same. He smiles at the drawing desk he’s created for himself and the art he’s hung up. He marvels at all the food in the kitchen, the bushels of apples and all the fresh produce in the refrigerator. Steve’s apartment is meticulously clean. He likes that too.

“This is all mine?”

“Well. You made a lot of money being asleep in the ice so long.”

“Weird.”

“You have a motorcycle parked out in the garage.”

“For real?!” Steve’s face lights up. Of course it does.

“Yeah buddy.”

Steve looks around the entire apartment, spinning and trying to take it all in. He leans against the doorframe to the living room.

“There’s just the one bedroom.”

“You lived alone for a long time,” Bucky replies. “I was sort of tied up for a while.”

“That’s what he said.”

“I’ll take the couch.”

“Don’t be stupid Bucky. It won’t be the first time we shared a bed.”

“If that’s what you want,” Bucky says softly. The back of his neck is hot.

They go to bed a few hours later, but they don’t sleep. Instead, they stay awake together, silent and holding one another like they haven’t seen each other in ages. Bucky supposes that’s true in a way. Steve is so small and his eyes are so bright. The way he holds Bucky doesn’t seem right; Steve clings to him, can’t seem to stop taking fistfuls of Bucky’s shirt and trying to pull him closer still. Bucky doesn’t think he deserves this, for Steve to hold him like he does, all desperate and patient at the same time.

Steve is limp in Bucky’s lap. They’re in Bucky’s bed, or more accurately the other older Steve’s bed. Bucky is sitting up against the headboard and this Steve, this small and precious Steve, is sitting in his lap, head resting against Bucky’s shoulder, arms draped over Bucky’s neck.

Steve doesn’t talk now. He just has his arms around Bucky and breathes softly against Bucky’s torso. Bucky has both arms around Steve. He’s so in love he’ll probably be sick.

Still, he runs a thumb over Steve’s backbones. His shoulder blades are sharp and delicate at the same time. Bucky wants to lick a stripe down Steve’s back, but he’ll never say. Instead, he clears his throat.

“Buck?” Steve asks. He’s lovely, and barely moves from his place in the crook of Bucky’s neck.

“Yeah Steve,” Bucky replies. It’s about three am.

The room is dark and if Bucky tries very, very hard, he can really pretend it’s 1940. Steve has his fingers against Bucky’s cheek, and all Bucky can make out are his big blue eyes and the lines of his thin, delicate face. When Steve shifts, the bed barely moves. He’s so small, like he always was, but it’s more noticeable now that Bucky has muscle from decades of fighting and his own version of the serum running through his veins.  
  
No part of Bucky’s life has ever made a whole lot of sense. This part though, how Steve can go from tiny to godlike to tiny all over again, without aging a day, fuck, if he’s been having trouble remembering what’s up and down now, this certainly ain’t helping.  
  
“Bucky?” Steve asks again. It’s funny how his voice is the same. How his hands are the same but no, this one has eyes so innocent that they’re hard to look at. This Steve never saw war. He never saw any war. This Steve has only been missing Bucky for a few months. He’s got no idea what Bucky is capable of. He just sees his friend that never wanted to go fight a bunch of Krauts in the first place. The day Bucky had gotten his draft letter he had locked himself in the bathroom and vomited up everything in his stomach, then wept like a child, and though they never talked about it, Bucky is sure Steve was aware of every wet gasp. The walls in their apartment had been very thin.

“Yeah, Steve,” Bucky replies. Steve’s fingers are dancing across Bucky’s face: down the ridge of his nose, to his jaw, then his chin, like Steve is inspecting to make sure Bucky is still Bucky. Problem is: Bucky isn’t the Bucky that this Steve knows.

Steve crawls out of Bucky’s lap. He lays down and Bucky follows. He wants to be at eye level.

But then Steve scrambles his little frame closer to Bucky, limbs all tangled in the bedsheets. Bucky can feel Steve’s breath on his face. Steve pushes himself just that fraction of an inch closer, and he kisses Bucky. His lips are dry. It’s hardly anything, the softest brush where their lips meet but Bucky inhales sharply all the same. He shuts his eyes, and for one single moment he kisses back. But he can’t do this. He wants to cry a bit but he pushes Steve away as gently as he knows how.

When he opens his eyes, Steve’s eyes are wide with horror, his mouth hangs open just a little.

“Oh, fuck,” Steve breathes. He pushes himself up and away from Bucky, moving so quickly out of the bed. But Bucky grabs his wrist with his flesh hand and pulls him back down.

“You don’t gotta run Steve.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Steve is saying, panic rising in his voice.

“Listen to me, you weren’t _wrong_ ,” Bucky says, desperate to find the right words when he so rarely can anymore. There was a time, he knows, when he used to be charming and witty, funny and sharp. Now he’s withdrawn, easily startled, impossibly childlike, sometimes in ways that Sam likes to tease him for. “But I’m not _him_ , Steve. I’m not the boy you want.”

“How do you know what I want?”

“Steve, how _old_ are you?” Bucky asks, panic curling up his throat.

“I’m twenty one.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” This Steve is just a kid, it’s impossible to fathom. Bucky releases Steve’s wrist.

“What, what about it?”

“How old do you think I am now?” Bucky asks. His voice is cracking a bit.

“I don’t know, what does it matter Buck?”

“I’m about thirty five,” Bucky says.

“About?”

“Time has been a little funny in case you hadn’t noticed. Plus, they only let me out of the ice every so often for a few days at a time. But I’m over a decade older than you.”

“Buck, even if your math is right, why would it matter? You’re you. People change but it don’t change who you are in your bones. You’re Bucky Barnes. You’re my best friend. I love you bad.” Steve tucks a strand of Bucky’s hair behind his ear. Bucky rolls away from the touch, onto his back. He isn’t wearing the arm. He took it off, too afraid of accidently hurting Steve.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know all I’ve done.”

“We’ve been over this. He told me. He told me everything.”

With that, Bucky is angry. “He didn’t tell you shit! He told you what you wanted. He never should have sent you back here. It wasn’t fair to you.”

“He _is_ me, Bucky! There’s no universe in which I wouldn’t have come back here for you.”

“Sure there is, he sure didn’t want to deal with me.” Bucky can’t help it. He’s crying a little.

“That’s not what happened and you know it. I told you why--”

“Steve, I’m not _him_ , I can’t remember a lot of things, but sometimes…” Bucky doesn’t know why Steve can’t _see_. Steve might be twenty one but Bucky sure ain’t. He’s so god damn old he should be dead by now. “Sometimes I see your face so clearly it’s like I’m being punched in the chest. Sometimes it’s the only thing I see.”

Steve throws his tiny body across Bucky’s chest and holds him. This Steve is the one Bucky loved first. He’s loved every Steve he’s known, the one that broke seventy years of brainwashing, the one that took a Nazi’s head off using the shield like a guillotine, the one that said goodbye to him just a day ago, lying to Bucky, in a way, when he said he’d be right back. But this is the Steve that he fell in love with first, the one that knew Bucky as a child, was there when Bucky choked on smoke attempting his first cigarette. He told this Steve about his first kiss. And sure, the Steve that lived through the war knew all those things, but this Steve is so close to the beginning of everything, unmarred by the world, Bucky wants to drink him up.

Bucky throws his arm over this Steve, his Steve, the one he saw on the helicarrier. That face, this face, is the one that saved him, because his face is always the same.

“I’m not him, I’m sorry Steve,” Bucky says, gasping for breath. “I wish I could be, for you, but I’m not and I can’t be.”

“It’s okay Buck, I won’t try it again. I won’t.”

That’s the most heartbreaking thing. Bucky wants nothing more than for Steve to try again. He wants Steve to kiss him again so bad. He also doesn’t want that, because it wouldn’t be right. He’s trapped in some terrible limbo where none of this feels okay.

They fall asleep like this. In the morning, Bucky discovers that Steve has fallen asleep with his head on Bucky’s chest, drooling into Bucky’s shirt. Bucky laughs. This has happened before. He just knows it.

**

Steve is still asleep. Bucky goes into the bathroom and picks up a razor and shaving cream, which the older Steve had left behind under the sink. He pulls his hair back with the band around his wrist and out of his eyes. He shakes the can and lets the foam cover his palms. He rubs the foam onto his chin, cheekbones, and down his neck. He brings the razor to his throat and watches himself in the mirror. He’s got a knife in his hands and he’s in control. He takes a deep breath and brings the blade up over the side of his neck. It pulls a little against the coarse hair.

When he’s done he sees he’s nicked himself in a few places, but it has been a long time since he’s really shaved. He’s out of practice. He brings a towel to his face, drying off. He looks at his reflection with his hair pulled back tight and a clean shaven face. He hopes this is something that Steve will recognize when he wakes up.

**

Bucky makes coffee just for something to do with his hands. That’s another one of the miracles of still being alive in 2024. The coffee is absolutely killer. Bucky gets a mug down from the cabinet and turns to see Steve with an apple in his hand. His hair is all pushed up on one side. It’s downright adorable. Bucky wants to run a hand through it and tug a little, just to hear what Steve would sound like.

“Morning sunshine,” Bucky says, and gets another mug. “You want milk or sugar?”

“Nah. Just black.”

That makes sense. Steve wouldn’t be used to putting things in coffee like that. Bucky imagines taking him to a Starbucks just to see the look on his face. They’ll get there eventually.

“So,” Steve says. He’s put his slacks back on. Bucky realizes he doesn’t have any other clothes yet. He wants to offer Steve something else to wear, but all he’s got are super soldier Steve’s clothes and Steve would be swimming in those. Bucky will have to get Sam to take them shopping. They have so much to do.

“So,” Bucky replies. He pours coffee into the mugs and hands one over to Steve. He pours milk into his own and smiles when he sees the look of horror on Steve’s face as he dumps three heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his mug.

“So you know how I feel now.”

“You told me before you pulled the whole time travel switch. I know how you feel Steve.”

“But you don’t seem too thrilled about it,” Steve says, and it’s so fuckin’ sad. To his credit, Steve doesn’t blush or stumble over his words. He’s being so matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

“Problem is Steve, I think you’re in love with someone who doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Is that what you thought about the other me? You’re right in front of my face Buck.”

Bucky can sense that Steve is getting angry. He’s seen that face hundreds of times. Bucky loves that wild look in his eye. He loves Steve.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you know me anymore.”

“Why don’t you let me decide that for myself?” Steve steps forward. He gets up on his tiptoes and tucks a strand of hair that’s fallen out of Bucky’s hair band back behind his ear. “You shaved for me.” Steve takes Bucky’s coffee mug out of his hands, and then runs his fingers across Bucky’s cheek. Steve sighs, then takes his hand away. “I meant it. I won’t try it again. Just to be clear. I’m sorry I did it at all. I was mistaken.”

“I’m real sorry. I mean it, we can send you back. If you don’t want to do this.”

“Bucky I don’t care either way. If you don’t want me like that it’s okay. I came here to help you. I care about you, bottom line. I’m not going anywhere, okay? Just. Tell me you’re not pissed off at me. I just wanna move past it.”

As if Bucky can just move past the fact that Steve is in love with him, or some version of him that used to not know how to kill people in three different ways just by surveying his surroundings in ten seconds. Like he can just forget. Like it isn’t taking up every part of his mind. He wants to pick Steve up and kiss him against the wall till they both can’t breathe. But Steve is a baby and he doesn’t know Bucky anymore. Bucky pushes the thoughts aside.

“Of course I’m not pissed. Come here.”

Steve obliges. He leans his forehead into Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky hugs him tight.

**

Bucky spends a week with Steve and it’s obvious they need to take him to see Shuri. He gets a cough that is deep and tough almost immediately. They realize just how bad his eyesight is when he tries to read a road sign on the highway and Sam runs a hand down his face.

“Are you actually blind?” Sam asks Steve, horrified.

“I didn’t think so. I just can’t see things that are far away.”

“That wasn’t far away! Get the boy glasses!”

Bucky laughs at Sam’s dismay and Steve’s determination that he’s perfectly fine. Sam shakes his head and tightens his grip on the steering wheel as he flips his turn signal on and switches lanes. _Yeah pal, imagine fifteen years of that shit._

Bucky brings Steve to Shuri, and she laughs a little when she looks Steve up and down. “Oh good, you’ve brought me another broken white boy to fix.”

Steve looks sheepish at the comment, but lightens when he sees that Shuri is only teasing.

“Don’t worry Steve, she had to fix me too.”

Shuri runs some tests. While Steve waits for the results, Bucky follows Shuri into the lab.

“I always knew he was so sick all the time, I’m almost afraid to ask about all of it.”

“He is half deaf in one ear. He’ll need glasses. He has a heart murmur. His immune system is terribly weak. I’m actually surprised he lived as long as he did in 1940.”

“Well, there were a lot of close calls.”

“So, what, do you want me to make him big again?” Shuri says, and she’s probably joking but Bucky can’t stop the shout that leaves him.

“No!”

Shuri raises her brows.

“Sorry. Just. No. I just want him to be well.”

“I can do that.”

After a couple of hours, Shuri sets Steve up with several bottles of medication, a hearing aid, and a pair of glasses. She had tried to let Steve pick his own glasses but she had been horrified at his choice. _I know you’re technically a hundred years old but you can’t wear those! You look like a grandfather._ She had picked out a pair of dark rimmed glasses, a stark contrast to Steve’s light hair and skin. They did look nice though, and Bucky had smiled as he had watched Steve inspect his reflection, hardly recognizing the man in the mirror.

While Shuri shows Steve how to work his hearing aid, Sam settles into the chair next to Bucky.

“This is too weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Bucky says, biting his lip to stop from smiling as Steve laughs at something Shuri has said.

“How can he be so different yet exactly the same?” Bucky doesn’t know if Sam is actually asking a question or just talking to himself, marveling at the situation.

“I don’t know. He’s so young.”

“You’re tellin’ me. I’m trying not to be pissed as hell at him.”

“What did he do?” Bucky raises an eyebrow, and Sam looks at him like he’s being stupid on purpose. Then again, that’s how Sam looks at him at least eighty percent of the time.

“Not _him_. The other one. The one who actually knew my name.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“Sam, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I told him it would be fine. I told him to go. I didn’t think this would be the outcome.”

“It’s like he didn’t think of me at all.”

“Sam.” Bucky reaches out and puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder. He feels kind of silly doing it, but he’s trying to get better about the whole friendship thing.

Sam looks at him suspiciously at first but then relents and lets his shoulders sag. “Thanks Barnes. It’s just. I’m starting all over. I like him already but there are so many things that I expect him to know already. There are parts of me that just love the big guy and this new version has no idea. Do you know what I mean?”

Bucky _does_ know. There is a memory of Steve during their first war that he keeps close to his heart. There’s a night in France, where they’re all drunk, all aside from Steve of course, around a campfire. Bucky is leaning against Morita, and they’re all singing loud and happy. Steve later helps Bucky into a tent and holds him while he falls asleep. Bucky was able to pretend they were in Brooklyn that night, drunk enough to forget but lucid enough to recall the feel of Steve’s chest pressed tightly to his back. He had mumbled about their shitty apartment waiting for them back home until Bucky had passed out, warm and happy for the first time in ages.

There are hundreds of memories like this. Steve visiting in Wakanda. Steve helping Bucky piece memories together. Steve leaving again. Steve kissing him softly. There’s a lot of Steve that Bucky loves that this younger version wasn’t present for. It’s all very complicated.

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Steve turns away from Shuri for a moment and looks over at Sam and Bucky. He smiles at the pair of them like he just _knows_ they’re talking about him.

Sam chuckles. “Look at that asshole. He knows we’re gossiping.”

Bucky smiles at Sam. “Thanks for loving Steve. And not Captain America.”

Sam snorts. “He’s the best of the best.”

“Ain’t he just.”

**

Two weeks pass, and though there are some awkward moments, Bucky and Steve grow around each other, relearning each other’s patterns. Bucky picks things up about Steve easily, because he slowly remembers the way this smaller Steve moves and the way he laughs and the way he prods at Bucky and makes him laugh.

“I’m still learning things,” Bucky admits to Steve while they lay on the floor of the apartment. It’s a warm day and they’ve been lounging around running up the AC bill. “I remember things, usually. But I still need to be reminded. I still need to be prompted sometimes. That’s why. That’s why things seem so new. I know that the first time I kissed someone was in 1931. I remember her face. I remember her name but…I’ve got no idea how I felt about it.”

“I could tell you,” Steve says, then real quiet, “You told me all about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We were walkin’ home from school. You rapped on my shoulder with your knuckles and you had this shit eatin’ grin on your face. I immediately knew what happened. I was jealous but I wanted to be happy for you too, so I let you tell me, ‘cause you’d been talkin’ all about some girl named Bea for weeks.”

It’s endlessly funny to Bucky to imagine Steve jealous of some girl Bucky had to, with great effort, convince himself he desired.

“Yeah? And what did I say?”

“You said ‘Guess what Steve?’” and Steve makes his voice a pitch higher because despite his tiny frame he’s always had such a big voice. “And you told me you had gotten your first kiss, that Bea’s eyes had been so green, and you were blushing a little, but mostly you looked like you couldn’t believe it.”

“I remember now, but you had it wrong. I was excited to tell _you_. I wanted to see how you’d react.”

“What, why?”

“ _Because_ ,” Bucky says, “If you believed that I was into it maybe the rest of the world would.”

“It’s still crazy to me that they got all these words for it now,” Steve says, a smile spreading across his face.

“A word for what?”

“Bein’ queer. I guess that’s not something we can say now. Or, not like that anyway.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, Sam and Peter have told me all these words, all these things that people call themselves. Probably Natasha told the other me. I feel bad I didn’t get to know her.”

Bucky takes a moment to realize that Steve has been talking about being attracted to other men with Sam and Parker, the kid from Queens. It makes him feel a little raw, thinking about how Steve hasn’t even been here a month but he’s been discussing such personal things like that with people who should be strangers.

“Oh, that. Yeah, Shuri explained a lot of it to me when I was living in Wakanda. I guess I’m gay.” Bucky laughs when he says it. It feels odd to say out loud, about himself. The whole situation had been absurd. Back in 2017 Shuri had asked where Steve was. _On a mission or something._ Bucky had said. Shuri had said _Your boyfriend needs a new hobby._ Bucky had had to explain that Steve wasn’t his boyfriend, and Shuri had rolled her eyes dramatically, saying _White boy, you are as gay as they come, and I see how he looks at you._ Then Bucky had had to ask what she meant.

“I never would have known before. Not ever,” Steve admits.

“Yeah, cause if you had I woulda been arrested, stupid.”

“It just feels weird that I didn’t know. I’m supposed to know you best, right?”

“You do know me best Steve.”

“Then why couldn’t I see it? Me of all people?”

“Because it was most important that you couldn’t see it,” Bucky admits, and his voice is so quiet he hopes that Steve can hear him, what with his bad ear and everything. Then Bucky remembers Shuri fixed his bad ear. She fixed everything aside from his size.

“Um,” Steve says. He doesn’t say anything else, but Bucky can see that he’s trying to suppress the smile forming on his lips.

Bucky doesn’t say anything else. He feels guilty, letting things like this slip. It’s like he’s dangling a carrot in front of Steve and in front of himself and it makes his skin feel itchy. Still, Steve smiles a little, completely inwardly, not at Bucky at all, but it still counts.

**

Steve starts drawing again in his third week. He sketches Sam and Scott playing pool at a bar in Harlem. He sketches Peter in his Spiderman suit sitting in Stark Tower eating an orange right after he’s gotten out of school. He sketches Hope and Scott laughing together. He sketches random items in their apartment. He draws Sam a lot. He likes Sam. Sometimes he blushes around Sam and Bucky wonders, but doesn’t ask.

Steve draws everything except for Bucky.

As the weeks pass, Steve spends less time in the apartment and more time with the other Avengers, like nothing has changed. Bucky selfishly wants it to stop. He wants to lock Steve in a room and smother him, hold him and hold him until Bucky doesn’t remember anything from the last eighty years except for Steve. It’s ridiculous, and an ugly emotion. Bucky tries not to think about it.

Upon realizing he won’t catch a fever at the drop of a hat and can run without having an asthma attack, Steve asks Sam if he can train him.

“I want to get a little stronger,” Steve insists. “I never could before. I think I could now.”

“You want Captain America to train Captain America?” Sam asks, arms across his chest and a smirk on his lips.

“Yeah. I mean, you’re probably gonna do a lot better than that first jackass.”

Sam throws his head back and laughs. Bucky catches himself smiling. Steve is just Steve.

**

Bucky wakes up and sees that one of Steve’s legs is above the sheets, like he was overheating in the middle of the night. The sun hits Steve’s thigh, and Bucky can see all the light hairs high up on Steve’s thigh. Bucky licks his lips. Bucky places his hand on Steve’s pale thigh. Steve continues to sleep. The fine, soft hairs tickle Bucky’s palm. He runs his thumb across Steve’s skin, making little circles near the inside of his right thigh.

Steve’s eyes flutter open. Bucky leaves his hand. If he pulls away he’ll feel guiltier. He should be caught for this. Steve doesn’t swat at Bucky’s hand or move his leg away though. Instead he smiles sleepily. “Morning, Buck.”

“Hey.” Buck squeezes Steve’s thigh. “Sorry,” he mumbles. He moves his hand away.

Steve only shrugs about it.

**

Bucky wakes himself with his own screaming. He has to gasp for breath. This particular dream had been especially grotesque. It was an old but familiar memory, one he knew intimately and hated completely. He had been on the table again, straps tight on his wrists and bite in his mouth. He wishes he could just be over this specific one already. It’s hardly the worst of what he’s had to deal with, but it’s the one his mind always goes back to.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Steve says from the floor. But why’s he on the floor?

Bucky sits up in bed and turns his head. He sees the silhouette of Steve’s frame on the floor, head against the wall. _No._

“Steve?” Bucky calls out, and then reaches out for the light.

“Yeah, I’m right here.”

Light floods the bedroom. Steve is on the carpet, rubbing at the back of his head. There are bruises already forming on the sides of his neck. Bucky’s chest goes cold.

“Steve?”

“Bucky, stop. I’m fine. Don’t even think about feeling guilty.”

He hasn’t even worn the arm when he shares the bed with Steve. For this exact reason. This isn’t the first time Steve has dealt with Bucky having nightmares but Bucky has never hurt him before. He was always so scared he would, and now it’s come true.

Bucky maneuvers his body off the bed and hastily crawls over to Steve. “You’re already bruising,” Bucky says. He wants to run his hand across the bruise, to inspect it and see how bad it is. He wants to rub a thumb over it to see if it’s tender. But he pulls his hand back. It’s his hand that caused this after all.

“We both know I bruise like a damn peach. I’m fine. I promise. Are you okay? Oh, Buck.”

Steve reaches out and wipes his thumb over Bucky’s cheek. Bucky blinks. His eyelashes are wet. Oh good. He’s crying.

“I’m so sorry,” Bucky says. “I never wanted to hurt you.” A sob escapes Bucky’s throat. He feels too hot and too embarrassed. “Fuck. I’m so sick of hurting people and not even remembering doing it.” His voice cracks. He can’t breathe.

“Don’t apologize.” Steve reaches her hand out and his fingers brush against Bucky’s shoulder. As soon as he feels the touch, Bucky winces, then shrugs Steve off.

“Please don’t touch me,” Bucky says, when all he wants to do is curl up and rest his head on Steve’s thigh.

“I’m sorry. What can I do?”

“You should leave me alone.”

Steve sighs but he’s relentless. “Well that’s not gonna happen.”

“I mean it. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’m a fuckin’ mess. Look what I just did to you.”

“As if this is the worst I’ve been through?” Steve says, and he even laughs. “I’m not leavin’ you alone. I didn’t time travel a hundred years to leave you alone you damn jerk.”

Steve pushes Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky lets him. Still, Bucky shakes his head. “I was never worth all of this. You keep doing too much for me.”

“Dammit, Bucky! You did everything for me my entire life, let me do this one thing for you!” Steve is yelling. His eyes are turning angry.

“You act like I didn’t get nothin’ out of it.”

“Bucky, don’t act like I don’t know everything you did for me. I know I can be naïve sometimes, but I’m not stupid. I know you used to work yourself to the bone so you can pay both our halves of rent whenever I couldn’t get out of bed. I know you used to steal food so we’d still have money for meds so I didn’t die in bed. Come on Buck. There was never anything I could do to reciprocate. Let me help. I’m just evening the score.”

“I was happy to do all that.”

“I know, and I’m happy to do this. C’mere.” Steve takes Bucky’s head in his hands and pulls Bucky close. Bucky can hear Steve’s heartbeat. He can hear each breath which he now takes easily. There’s no rattle in that chest. Bucky reaches up and drapes his arm around Steve’s shoulder. Steve hums into the touch. He kisses the top of Bucky’s head. “See?”

Bucky grips Steve tighter. Steve’s fingers dig into Bucky’s back, like he’s squeezing back. Like he knows. They stay like that on the floor, for a while, and Bucky thinks he has a memory of them doing something similar on the afternoon they learned about Pearl Harbor, because they both knew what that meant.

**

Eventually, Bucky does take Steve to a Starbucks.

It’s shocking it didn’t happen sooner really, given that Bucky adores Starbucks. He likes all the fancy sugary drinks that hardly taste like coffee at all but still give him that familiar caffeine buzz he knows so well from hounding terrible cold rations around small campfires back in ’43.

Steve does not like the sugar coated drinks. He goes to the girl at the counter and orders a large house coffee, the dark roast. She smiles at him from behind her cat eye bright red glasses, her big brown eyes warm and bright. Bucky narrows his eyes at her as she tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear.

“I like your glasses,” Steve tells her, being friendly. Steve is always overly nice to the customer service workers he encounters.

“I like yours too,” the girl says, biting her bottom lip. Bucky narrows his eyes further. She’s a little taller than Steve, and her red lipstick reminds him of Carter’s.

“We could switch!” Steve says, “But I don’t think I could pull yours off.”

The girl lets out a giggle and smiles so wide at Steve that Bucky knows it isn’t a fake how-can-I-help-you one. Bucky clears his throat.

“What can I get you?” She asks, turning to Bucky reluctantly.

Bucky orders, and then they wait for their drinks. Steve gets his phone out and replies to a text from Sam taking an age to finish his message. He’s still bad at technology. He’s getting there, but it’s slow going.

Their orders finally arrive at the counter and when Steve picks up his coffee his eyebrows go up to his hairline and his face turns red.

“What is it?” Bucky asks.

Steve walks a few feet from the counter and then clears his throat awkwardly. “I think the barista mixed up our drinks.”

“What?”

“She left her phone number on my cup. I’m sure she meant for you to have it.” Steve is turning redder by the second. Bucky rolls his eyes.

“No she didn’t. She barely looked at me. She absolutely meant it for you, dummy.”

“Buck, come on,” Steve insists. He won’t look Bucky in the eye. “Girls don’t really tend to look at me twice.”

“Maybe not in 1940, but they were stupid not to. I always told you that.”

“Yeah you had to tell me that because you’re my best friend. I’m sure she just mixed them up.”

“Then why did she write ‘I like your glasses’ next to her name and phone number?” Bucky says, and takes a sip of his drink.

Steve stutters for a minute, then huffs out a sigh. “This is weird. Girls always liked you best.”

“Which was always unfortunate for everyone involved. Things are different now Steve. Just ‘cause you’re skinny doesn’t mean you’re gonna fall over anymore. You should text her.”

“Maybe,” Steve mumbles, and Bucky isn’t sure if he’s saying maybe to the fact that things are different, or if he means that maybe he will text the girl. Bucky doesn’t ask for clarification. They leave the coffee shop, and Bucky wills the tightening in his chest to go away.

**

Bucky is half asleep. He opens his eyes and sees Steve asleep a few inches away. His lips have fallen open and he has a strand of too long blond hair falling over his stupid, oversized ear. Bucky smiles and pushes the hair back off Steve’s face. As he does so Steve sniffs and then brings a hand up to his nose. Bucky laughs softly.

“Mmph,” Steve says. He drapes an arm over Bucky’s waist. “Hey Buck.” His voice is deep and rough with sleep. Something hot rolls over in Bucky’s gut, something he hasn’t felt in a very, _very_ long time.

Steve moves closer, pushing his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck. His breath is warm and soft against Bucky’s collarbone. Bucky pushes a hand into Steve’s hair.

Steve sneaks his hand under Bucky’s shirt. It’s a little surprising, but Steve isn’t really awake and he’s just looking to hold Bucky like he always used to.

But, maybe not, because Steve’s palm ends up at Bucky’s bare hip. He squeezes, then lets his knuckles graze across Bucky’s stomach. Bucky’s muscle’s twitch where Steve has just touched of their own accord. Bucky gasps. “Steve?”

Steve’s eyes open wider. “Oh.” He sits up in bed. “Um. Shit.”

“It’s okay Steve. Just go back to sleep.” He takes Steve’s wrist in his hand, hoping to pull him back down. He’d do anything for that soft breath against his skin again, the warm palms against his ribs.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, then gets up out of bed.

_No no no,_ Bucky thinks, but then, what the fuck does he think is happening?

Bucky is being wildly unfair. He’s being so fucking selfish. His stomach rolls over and the heat turns into a cold self-loathing.

Steve leaves the bedroom. He does not come back in. Bucky touches his stomach where Steve’s knuckles were and clutches. His skin is warm and his mind feels fuzzy. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, terribly unused.

This is a mess. Twenty one year old Steve Rogers has been in 2024 for one month.

**

Sam tells Bucky to start journaling. It’s what he had suggested to dozens of people at VA meetings. Bucky rolls his eyes at first. He doesn’t suspect anything will help the nightmares and the guilt and the overall feeling of impending doom but then he remembers the letters he used to write to Steve back when he was first seeing the front lines. He was always worried the other men in the 107th would suspect that he was writing to his best girl back home. They wouldn’t have been wrong but it had still terrified him nonetheless. The letter writing had been a good distraction when he was scared any moment he’d be shot in the head. So he does it. And it’s no surprise that he writes to Steve, even if he’ll never see it.

First he just talks about his day. _We went for a walk, me and you, just shootin’ the shit, talkin’ about how overwhelming this century can be._ It was nice to shake out the details. It was nice to think about the cadence of Steve’s voice and the grey of the sky.

So Bucky does it again the next day. And the next.

He hates to tell Sam that he was right about something, because Sam always seems to be right. It’s no wonder Steve liked him so much. And Bucky understands why Sam had hated him so thoroughly. He was being protective of Steve. Hell, Bucky would have hated himself too. In fact, he still does.

What Bucky finds most interesting, reading his journal entries back, is that the voice is almost familiar. He reads the words he’d drawn out of himself and thinks he can hear someone with a steady hand and slicked back hair talkin’ all smooth. It’s like an old friend coming back around after months of being away.

**

It rains a lot in the afternoons as the weather gets hotter. It’s always been like this, too fuckin’ muggy and humid to do anything except sit very still. Only now, they’ve got AC, which Steve has been very happy about. It was not a luxury they ever got to take advantage of until now.

Bucky likes the sound of the rain. He always has. He watches the rain hit the window, listens to the rhythm of the rain against the glass, against the brick. Steve settles into the couch and turns on the television. They’re making their way through the seventies now. It was a good decade for movies. Bucky loves all of them, the horror films, the science fiction, all that action, even when the blood is pink and not at all realistic. It’s all fun. Especially when Steve jumps a foot in the air at The Exorcist and Bucky laughs for a full five minutes. Sometimes Steve is still positively scandalized by some of the films, but he’s getting used to it, everything being so sexualized and in your face. The first time they started cursing and showing nudity in a film they watched, Steve’s eyes went all wide and he asked if they were even allowed to show that in theaters. Bucky had laughed then too. He wonders if that’s how the other Steve was too at first. Bucky imagined Natasha took Steve to movies, showed him things about the future that would have shocked him and helped him ease into the new century.

Now when things like that happen, Steve just blushes a little and keeps his eyes on the screen. He’s getting better about it. It’s horribly cute, but Bucky can’t tell him that for a plethora of reasons. For one he’d get all huffy about being called cute, which would just make him cuter. Secondly he can’t say stuff like that because he and Steve aren’t together like that, despite everything.

Steve turns on the TV and puts a movie on real low. Steve has put on a Peter Sellers comedy. He likes these types because they’re simple and slapstick and usually he puts them on when he’s not feelin’ so hot emotions wise. They cheer him up. Bucky doesn’t ask what it is this time. Instead he listens to the rain and to Peter Seller’s ridiculous accent and settles in next to Steve. He puts an arm around Steve’s shoulders and folds his legs up underneath himself. Bucky sits and sleeps all curled up now, all the time. He thinks he used to sleep much more splayed out, like Steve does still, but he isn’t sure.

Steve turns to Bucky and smiles a little. He leans into Bucky’s arm and then turns his eyes back to the TV. His profile is wonderful to look at: his thin nose with the bend in the middle where he’s been punched far too often, the high cheekbone, and his dark lashes framing his eyes. Bucky gulps and puts his flesh hand on Steve’s knee. He squeezes through the denim.

Steve stops laughing at the screen. He looks up at Bucky again but this time he ain’t smiling. He licks his lips and then gets this determined look on his face. It’s the face he got when he kept telling Bucky he was gonna try to get the army to accept him again after another 4F. It’s the same face he always had when he told Bucky he was going to keep paying his part of the rent, even when he was sick and near death. Bucky doesn’t like it.

“I gotta talk to you Buck.”

“Yeah, about what?”

Steve’s face turns red, but his mouth is a hard line. “About this.” Steve looks down at Bucky’s hand resting on Steve’s thigh. Bucky looks at the way he’s got his whole body curled around Steve’s much smaller one. It looks like he’s suffocating him.

“What’s wrong about this?” Bucky asks, like he doesn’t already know. Bucky feels like his chest might be caving in.

“ _Nothing_. That’s the problem. Except I think it means something different to each of us.” Steve is getting redder by the second.

Bucky has to think really hard. He’s pretty sure he and Steve have always touched like this. He shuts his eyes and tries to recall if he was allowed to do this back in the twentieth century. He’s pretty sure he was. Plus, they’ve been touching like this for weeks.

And worst of all, most selfishly of all, he’s worried that if he can’t touch Steve like this he’ll fall apart entirely.

“Didn’t we used to sit like this?”

“We did. But that was before you knew how I felt about you. At least before I could pretend. Now you know and you’re around me like this and it’s.” Steve works his jaw, looking irate, and doesn’t look Bucky in the eye. “It’s humiliating,” he finally finishes, so terribly quiet.

Bucky removes his hand from Steve’s knee. He takes his metal arm away from his skinny shoulders. He’s made Steve feel _humiliated_. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I shoulda said something sooner. But, I don’t mean you can’t touch me entirely. Of course. Whatever you need. I just.” Steve is getting his words jumbled. “It’s just that when you’re close like this it makes me feel like maybe you could. Maybe. You could want me too. And I can’t keep being so close like this. I know you need the comfort. I’ll give that to you, always. But it means something else to me.”

“I.” Bucky tries to find the words, but he’s too tongue tied. He feels horrified. He comes up blank. “I’m sorry,” he finally says dumbly.

“No Buck. It ain’t your fault. It’s on me.”

Bucky’s mind races. He doesn’t know what to do to fix this, but he has to fix this. The most obvious fix would just be to kiss Steve but that makes his chest tighten too. None of this is right.

“Steve.” Bucky wrings his hands.

“Stop. It’s fine.” Steve pushes a strand of Bucky’s hair behind his ear. “Don’t go blowin’ your wig about it. It’s real recent, this realization. I ordered myself a bed. I’ll be in the same room and everything, and if you have a nightmare I’ll be right there. But I can’t sleep in the same bed as you, wakin’ up with our legs all tangled. It’s killing me Buck. I’m sorry.”

It’s been killing Bucky too. Just the other day Bucky woke up to see Steve with an arm thrown up over his head, his chest rising and falling softly, looking so pretty Bucky had had to turn over and bite down on the pillow. It’s terrible. And he’s warm at night too. So warm and soft and Bucky is really starting to think that being in love with the same person for over a hundred years is just not worth it, it’s far too exhausting. Too bad he has no choice about it.

“I get it. I’ll be fine Steve.”

“I just wanna do right by you, okay? It ain’t fair to you if I don’t change this.”

“Okay.”

Bucky resituates himself on the couch. He puts a couple inches between them and hugs his knees to his chest. He only feels a little sick.

Steve reaches across the inches and takes Bucky’s metal hand in his. He squeezes and this makes it a little bit okay. Steve smiles at Bucky and raises an eyebrow.

Bucky smiles back. They will be okay. It’s only been two months.

**

Bucky wakes up and he must have been causing a scene in his sleep, because Steve is in his bed and they don’t share a bed anymore. As he comes to, he realizes his hands are shaking too. He brings his flesh hand to his face. It comes away wet.

“Fuck.”

“You’re okay,” Steve says. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with one hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He still has his glasses on. He must have been awake.

Bucky still keeps his arm off when he sleeps, but he surprises himself to find he wishes he were wearing it now. He feels so vulnerable without it. Bucky pulls the sheets up around himself.

“What was it this time?” Steve asks. Bucky doesn’t look at him because just his voice is setting Bucky on edge. It’s so worried and gentle. Bucky can only assume his eyes are ten times worse and he just. Can’t.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Bucky insists. This wasn’t even a Hydra fueled nightmare. He was dreaming about Steve, about the two whole times he’s kissed him, not including the one he can’t remember when he was a baby at eighteen, drunk as hell, and he’s apparently started crying in his sleep.

“Sure Buck. We don’t gotta talk about it.”

Steve crawls into Bucky’s bed fully and pulls Bucky to his skinny chest. He puts his fingers in Bucky’s hair and massages his scalp. Bucky lets it happen for a few minutes. He wishes he was still dreaming. He moves his body away from Steve’s.

“You don’t gotta do this,” he mumbles.

“You say that every time. Like I don’t _wanna_.”

“It’s too much for you to keep see me like this.” Bucky speaks softly and shuts his eyes. He still doesn’t want to look at Steve.

“Bucky, do you remember in ’37 when I had the flu real real bad?”

Bucky does. It was, at the time, the two worst months of his life. He thought he was going to lose Steve. He’d been sure he was going to. He nods with his eyes closed.

“Then you remember the night I thought I was well enough to eat and I ate some of the roast your Ma had brought over and promptly barfed up the bit that I had been able to eat along with all the liquids I’d been able to keep down over the last two days.”

Bucky nods again.

“You were so upset. I was pretty out of it but you were so angry and sad, that much I could tell. And it was all my fault that your face was all twisted up. But you drew me a bath and you stripped me down and you fucking. Bathed me. While I was covered in vomit and sweat. I sat there crying in the tub because I was so god damn useless, but you just kept saying how it was fine, that you didn’t mind at all. And Jesus Buck, I was so embarrassed because not only was I so helpless but I was lying in the water naked in front of you and you were touching me, just trying to ease some of my suffering. Just a little bit. Bucky, this ain’t nothin’. Please believe me.”

The memory hits Bucky like a bat to the head. He had been so scared. Steve had been even thinner than usual, unable to keep anything down aside from soup and cool glasses of water for weeks. He remembers the sick running down Steve’s throat and then the immediate anger that had filled his eyes. Steve was so angry at himself because he just couldn’t get better. _We’ll get you cleaned up, no worries,_ Bucky had said, but Steve was too weak and shaky to undress himself or really get in the tub without slipping. Bucky had just done the only thing left to do. He had whistled and sang softly while he had taken a cloth over Steve’s chest, trying to make it all as casual as possible.

“You were sick Steve. That wasn’t your fault. You never did deserve how often you got sick.”

“Sure. Just like you don’t deserve any of your pain either.”

Bucky opens his eyes. “You don’t even know what I was dreaming about this time.”

“So what?”

“So how do you know if I deserve it or not?”

“Because I know you. Just come here, okay?”

Bucky obliges. He rests his face in the crook of Steve’s neck and he cries, finally, for all of it.

In the morning Bucky hears soft voices from the living room. He gets out of bed and creeps out into the hall on bare feet, ears straining to hear.

“I want to see the file again,” Steve says. Over the speakerphone, Sam is sighing.

“I thought you knew all of it.”

“I do know all of it. But I was only told the one time. I want to know what I’m dealing with. I want to see it. I want to make sure I’m saying the right things.”

“I don’t know if seeing all the photos and all the details would be good for you.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s good for me, it’s for him.”

“Look. Last time you saw it all, you drove around the country ripping Hydra apart. At least you had an outlet. But you already did all that. This time you’ll just be furious and pained and _stuck_.”

“No. This time I have him.”

“Fine. Come over at 15:00. I’ll get you a copy.”

“Thank you Sam,” Steve says, his voice steely and determined.

Bucky tiptoes back to bed and pulls the covers over his head, exhausted all over again.

He wants to sleep the whole day away. He doesn’t want 15:00 to ever come because Steve thinks he understands everything Bucky is but if he never even saw the facts laid out he’s certainly not aware of any of it, despite what his other self may have told him. Bucky has had his suspicions that this was true, and having it confirmed makes his stomach roll over. Steve doesn’t know shit, and the last two months have been a beautiful lie. Bucky shuts his eyes and against all odds falls asleep again.

He wakes again to Steve rummaging around the bedroom getting dressed. For a few minutes Bucky watches him: shirtless with wet hair, walking across the room barefoot. He picks out a shirt and throws it over his head. He cleans his glasses with the bottom of the shirt and puts them on. He looks so natural like this, getting ready. He’s got a serious look on his face that Bucky knows is about himself. He doesn’t like it.

Steve turns and sees that Bucky is watching him. He smiles wide. “Hey Buck, you lazy bum.”

Bucky offers a small smile in response. He can’t manage anything more.

“I’m gonna go see Sam. Do you want me to grab anything on my way back?” Steve pushes his hair out of his face. He looks good. He’s gaining a little muscle on his skinny arms and there’s a nice color on his face. He hasn’t been sick in weeks and weeks.

“Nah, I’m good,” Bucky says, still all wrapped up in his blankets.

“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.”

_Yeah, maybe,_ Bucky thinks, but keeps his mouth shut. He watches Steve walk out of the bedroom. He listens to the sounds of Steve finishing getting ready in the bathroom and the sounds of Steve putting on his shoes and locking the door on his way out.

Bucky thinks about Steve’s smile and tries to commit it to memory. When Steve comes back he’ll probably start packing up his things. Or maybe he’ll go straight to Banner and demand that they send him back to his proper timeline.

Bucky finally gets out of bed for real. He wanders around the apartment. He looks at Steve’s sketches on the desk in the living room. He looks at the pan Steve left in the sink from breakfast. He tries to want to eat something, but the more he attempts to find himself hungry, the less he wants to eat.

He feels ill for the hours Steve is gone. He showers and ties his hair up on his head. He forces down water. He misses Steve already.

Steve comes home late. They normally eat dinner around seven, but Steve doesn’t come back until nearly ten at night. It doesn’t bode well. Bucky lays on the couch, watching a movie but not really following it. Instead he’s seeing Steve back in 1940, sipping a glass of whiskey and throwing his head back in laughter.

Bucky hears the key in the door and doesn’t stir. He isn’t exactly eager to see what Steve’s face will look like, if Steve will even be able to stomach looking at Bucky.

Steve takes his shoes off and shuffles around. He gets himself a glass of water and eventually makes his way over to Bucky. “Hey Buck. Is this all you did today?”

“Yeah.”

Steve laughs. “Geez, you absolute bum.”

He sits down on the floor so that he’s eye level with Bucky. Bucky starts to get up, to make room on the couch, but Steve shakes his head. “No, no. Don’t you move. I’m good here.”

Bucky lays back down and looks Steve in the eye. Steve looks back, then raises an eyebrow.

“How’s Sam?”

“Sam’s great. I met his sister today too. She made us dinner. Sorry I’m so late.”

“You don’t have a curfew,” Bucky mumbles, hesitant to believe that Steve is looking at him the same as he did this morning.

“I know, but still. I like to be home with you.” Steve reaches up and puts a hand on the back of Bucky’s neck. He squeezes, and it’s so much more comforting than it has any right to be. Bucky sighs into it despite himself. “You want anything? I think I’m gonna make tea.”

_Tea?_ How the fuck is Steve thinking about tea?

Steve lifts himself off the floor and goes back into the kitchen. It’s quiet between them as Steve puts the kettle on and it isn’t until it starts to whistle that Bucky is able to push himself up off the couch and go find Steve in the kitchen.

“I don’t understand,” Bucky blurts. He’s still wrapped in the blanket from the couch. It helps a little.

“What are you talking about?” Steve gives him a quizzical look as he pours honey into a mug.

“I know you looked at the file.”

Steve sighs. He stirs his tea. “Hm. Of course you do.”

“So, tell me what you want to do.”

“What I want to do? I want to drink this tea and sit with you while we watch TV, and then I want to go to bed because it’s been a long day.”

“No, what do you want to do about the file?”

Steve shrugs, sipping his tea. “Nothing, I suppose. I’d like to burn it and I’d also like to destroy the world a bit but I can’t do that. So nothing.”

“But I did all that.”

“Yeah, you also saved my life about a thousand times. You also had four siblings you looked after. You had a life before what they did to you, and you have one now too. Even if it all feels far away. Even if you don’t remember. It was still you.”

“Exactly, it was still me. What makes any of that more important?”

“Because who you were before they got you was your choice!” Steve’s eyes are dark and angry. Steve works his jaw in frustration. He looks away from Bucky for just a moment, but when he looks back he softens. “You were right you know. The other me. He didn’t tell me shit. But only because him telling me and seeing it all laid out like that, it was completely different.”

“I’m sure seeing the evidence of everything wasn’t easy.”

“No, Bucky. Seeing what they did to you with my own eyes wasn’t easy. I never regretted coming here, but now I’m even more thankful that I did.”

Bucky slumps into one of the dining room chairs. He doesn’t want to fight about this anymore. Steve walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. He squeezes.

“I’m sorry Buck. I’ll stop talking about it.”

“How can you touch me?” Bucky whispers.

This is the wrong thing to say. Steve wraps his tiny frame around Bucky as much as he can. Bucky’s nose ends up at Steve’s collarbone. He breathes in deeply. He can smell Steve’s cologne which is different than it was in the 40s but is still nice.

“When will you believe me that you’re still my best friend?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“Who do you trust more than me, huh?” Steve demands, his lips moving against the top of Bucky’s head.

“No one,” Bucky whispers, annoyed that he doesn’t have a good retort.

“Then believe me. Please.” Steve squeezes the back of Bucky’s neck one more time and then pulls away to look at him. “Do you think for tonight we could share a bed? You know, like when we were kids?”

Steve has such a deeply hopeful look on his face and Bucky has always found it difficult to deny him anything.

“If that’s what you want,” Bucky says, just like that first night they were reunited.

“Do you do things that you don’t want just because you think it’ll make me happy?”

“I guess sometimes. But that’s not what’s happening right now,” Bucky confirms, like he doesn’t want to be all tangled up with Steve at all times.

“You sure?” Steve is getting that worried crease between his brow.

“I’ve never done something I’ve truly not wanted to do for you. ‘Cause it’s for you. Unless you count things you’ve asked me not to do. But even then.” Bucky shrugs. “It’s no sweat.”

“Okay. You want some tea?”

Bucky nods. He watches Steve make him a cup. They never had tea before. Or, rather, it was around but they never drank it. They only drank black coffee real cheap and watery.

With tea now, they have so many options. Steve makes Bucky green tea infused with cucumber and lemon. He adds honey. He knows what this weird 2024 version of Bucky likes, even if it’s only been three months.

They sit on the couch a foot apart and get halfway through a movie before Steve is falling asleep against the armrest.

Bucky smiles at the sight. Steve is too sweet for his own damn good. Bucky shuts off the TV and then picks Steve up, bridal style, and by some miracle Steve stays asleep. If Steve were to see this, to know he’s being manhandled like a child while unconscious he’d throw a damn fit, but as he remains asleep, Bucky can only think about how precious he is, and then laughs at the thought of Steve’s outrage.

He sets Steve down on the bed, and Steve blinks awake.

“When’d I get here?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Steve eyes him suspiciously but doesn’t comment. Instead he shucks off his socks and jeans and crawls beneath the covers. Bucky tries very hard not to think about the love of his life crawling into his bed in his god damn underwear and gets in on the other side.

Bucky lays very still. They used to do this all the time but a month ago Steve asked that they stop, and Bucky doesn’t want to fuck this up.

“Come here,” Steve says. He holds out his arms and Bucky can’t help the sigh that escapes him as he pushes his face into Steve’s collarbone.

“What does it feel like?” Steve whispers. His nose is pushed into Bucky’s hair, and his long fingers have a vicelike grip on Bucky’s shoulders. Somehow Bucky knows exactly what Steve is asking.

“Most of the time it just feels like exhaustion. And I used to get so confused. It doesn’t always feel real, the life we had. Which I hate so bad because I was never happier than I was then.”

Steve pulls him closer. “We can start over.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need to. I know it happened. I know because you’re here. You’re holdin’ me all sweet and everything. It’s familiar like nothing else.”

“Buck,” Steve says, and he sighs heavily like he’s tired all the way down into his ribcage and his toenails.

“I know. I’m sorry. Stevie.” Bucky hates himself so thoroughly.

“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve insists. He strokes Bucky’s hair, runs his fingers through it so soothing. He falls back to sleep and his breathing evens out as his fingers clench and unclench in sleep at Bucky’s shoulders and back. A part of Bucky wants to shudder and fall apart. He just wants to cry and cry until there is nothing left inside him while he holds his best friend’s small and lovely frame. Another part of him wants to leave the room and never return, he’s so scared he could spit. The Winter Soldier has a very specific set of skills. He could disappear without a trace so easily that not even Captain America or Steve Rogers or any of the fucking Avengers could bring him back.

Bucky does neither of these things. Instead, he pushes his nose into Steve’s neck and wraps his flesh hand around his waist. He falls asleep with Steve’s knee digging into his thigh.

**

“I need to be doing something,” Steve insists. “The other me saved the world ten times over and I’m just. Not doing anything!”

Bucky suppresses an eyeroll. Steve hardly wants to know what Bucky has to say. If Bucky had it his way, every Steve in every universe never would have seen any war at all, and the fact that this one hasn’t is something Bucky thanks god for every day.

“You don’t need to do anything. Sit down here, will you? Stop pacing. Jesus.”

“I’m just. This world is so big and there is so much I could do to help people. I have this body that is well now!”

“Hey!” Bucky says, pointing at Steve, sitting up straighter. He’s angry, and he’s had a hundred years of Steve running into trouble at the drop of hat. He’s fucking tired. “Cool it you little punk! Just because you can run without having an asthma attack now does not mean you should go around throwing punches just like you used to. You can leave the punching for when you’re training with Sam, okay? Jesus fuck buddy.”

Steve rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s cute when he’s getting ticked off. “You know I can’t help it!”

“I know you can’t, and it’s never even yourself you’re defending. You’re always defending someone else’s honor. I’m asking you to please not imply you’re gonna becoming a damn Avenger yourself.”

As soon as he says it Bucky feels guilty. It’s so selfish of him to say things like this. Bucky bites down on his bottom lip, trying to find the right words and feeling like a fish out of water.

“How angry were you with me?” Steve says very softly. Bucky knows he means the other him for becoming a science experiment.

“I was furious. I never told you. I was so angry. I asked you if it was permanent,” Bucky says, then laughs. Apparently it wasn’t, after all that time.

“There isn’t a war going on. There’s no one to save. You aren’t a thousand miles away from me. I can breathe properly. I don’t want to fight like that Buck. Not anymore. But I do need to be doing something. I just meant I should be doing anything. I’ve barely left the apartment. I have this routine which is good but I’m getting bored. It’s not like before when we were worried about starving to death or I was sick every other day. We were scraping by and now we have money, real money. I can have whatever I want whenever I want. It’s too much. It’s gluttonous at times. Don’t you feel that?”

Bucky laughs. “All the time.”

“So I just need to do something.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back to school,” Steve says, and it shocks Bucky so thoroughly that he’s rendered speechless. Steve takes a deep breath before he continues. “We were in school Buck. We were studying and it was good. And then you got drafted and nothing else seemed to matter.”

Bucky feels light and warm. He has to think real hard but he remembers all those math classes so suddenly. He cracks a smile. Bucky used to be very good at math. “So you wanna go back to drawin’ pictures of naked ladies Stevie?”

Steve turns an unbearable shade of red and tries his best to look irritated but is only flustered. Bucky laughs loud and open, loving that he can still tease Steve like this and have it come off charming if he tries real hard.

“You’re terrible Bucky. You know that?”

“Oh, I’m aware pal.”

“I want to go back to school. I want to draw and paint and then come home to you. That was what I wanted before and it’s what I want now,” Steve says. He’s so determined. He’s still blushing over Bucky’s suggestive comment but he’s recovering slowly.

“Okay. You could do that. I’ll help you apply and everything. Just like the first time.”

“Okay,” Steve says, then nods. “Good.”

**

Bucky is laying in the grass. Early summer in New York has always been a swamp. It’s no different now, but Bucky still enjoys the sun. There’s a baby crying nearby. Bucky tunes it out. A shadow falls over him and he smiles. He knows it’s Steve.

“Quit blockin’ my sun you little punk.”

“I brought you coffee though!”

Bucky hums gratefully. “Thank you, Stevie.” Bucky sits up and takes the drink. It’s an iced macchiato of some sort. Steve still likes his coffee plain and sugarless, but he knows Bucky likes his coffee to taste as much like a melted candy bar as possible. Just because he had to drink coffee that tasted like watered down sludge during the war doesn’t mean he’s willing to continue the tradition. Steve still likes his coffee to taste like coffee. Bucky supposes some things are just too much of a culture shock.

“You’re welcome.” Steve pushes his glasses back up on his face. “I got into the New School.”

“What?” Bucky says, but he’s already smiling.

“Yeah. It’s nice of the other me to have made so much money from just being…myself because I only got a little scholarship money so far.”

“But you got in?”

“Guess so,” Steve says, and he’s acting all casual but Steve is pleased, Bucky can tell. “You know, you can still go back to school, if you wanted to.”

“Yeah right. What would I even go for? Military history? I could ace reliving my trauma.”

“You used to want to study engineering?” Steve offers. Bucky outright laughs.

“Jesus fuck. I don’t even remember it.”

“You need a reminder?”

“No. I just mean, I don’t want that.”

“Okay. Well. It seems like you’re always writing nowadays.”

“I have a journal because Sam told me I should try journaling.”

“And you like it!”

“It’s just…a way to vent!”

“Still!”

Steve is all determined. He’s got that hard look in his eye. Bucky has always liked that. Steve adjusts his glasses on his face again and it makes Bucky want to bite down on Steve’s earlobe. He pushes the thought aside.

“I don’t think I’m meant for school, Stevie. I’m way too old.”

“People of all ages go back to school. I’m not eighteen, look at me!”

“At worst you’re like, in your fourth year.”

Steve is smirking. He sets his drink down and lays in the grass. “Fine. But still. I just want you to do something that makes you happy.”

Bucky lays down next to him. “Are you happy?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“You like it here better?”

“Well. It certainly has its perks. I haven’t gotten sick since I got here. I started training with Sam you know? I don’t know what I’ll be able to do yet but I’m hopeful I guess. Plus I don’t have to hide myself--” Steve starts, but then cuts himself off.

“What?”

“Sorry just. I like guys and girls and no one seems to care so much anymore.” Steve is going all red. It’s not as though Bucky doesn’t know. They’ve talked about it before. But, this means that Steve is actually seeking it out and that’s. It’s good. He should. Bucky tries not to feel so sore about it.

“That is a good perk.”

“Have you met anyone, Buck?” Steve asks, looking at the grass and taking a sip of his coffee.

“My head is too out of sorts for me to be with someone.”

“I mean, you don’t need to be with someone long necessarily,” Steve says, and he’s mumbling into his shirt sleeve.

“I’m not into the idea of a one night stand Steve.”

“You used to do that, sometimes.”

“Stevie, I used to go on all those dates with girls too. I can’t just. I don’t. I don’t wanna just do that with a stranger.” Bucky turns in the grass so he’s on his back.

“Sorry.” Steve takes Bucky’s metal hand in his. “I just want you to as happy as possible.”

Bucky turns his head slightly so he can look at Steve. It’s so awful to think that fuck, he’d be happiest if he just let himself love Steve.

“I know buddy.”

**

On an evening in August Banner rushes into the living room of Stark tower with a smile plastered on his face.

Bucky doesn’t particularly like going to Stark tower but Sam does, because all the other Avengers still meet there regularly, and even though Stark is gone his legacy sure isn’t.

“What is it?” Scott asks.

“Thor’s coming. And Quill. All of them are coming for a visit.”

“Really?” Peter asks from across the room, sitting up a little straighter. He’s sitting next to Steve. They’re looking at some photos Peter had taken for a class. They’re both artsy like that, and they get along real well, despite Peter’s unabashed admiration of Steve being a little much at first.

“Yeah, tonight. I got a message from Quill. They’ll be here in just a few hours.”

“Who are we talking about?” Steve asks.

“Thor. He’s a God. It’s cool,” Scott says, a smirk falling over his face.

“You’ll like them,” Sam says, then looks over to Bucky, raising an eyebrow.

Thor comes booming into Stark tower, looking decidedly more put together than the last time Bucky had seen him. He hadn’t seen him for a long, but Thor is all hard muscle with his hair pulled back into neatly done braids.

They all do introductions over again for Bucky and Steve. They’d been in the midst of a war last time Bucky had seen any of them, and this younger Steve has no idea who any of them are. In Steve’s defense, he takes meeting a few aliens, a literal God and a talking raccoon very well.

“This is the Captain?” Thor asks, surprise in his voice.

“Well, technically, I was never Captain America, but I am Steve Rogers,” Steve says, rubbing at the back of his neck. He’s smiling at Thor, all shy, and –is that a blush creeping into his cheeks? Bucky clenches his jaw and tries not to think about it.

“I never knew you were so small Steve Rogers. This is amusing! I like this Steve Rogers. Most adorable!” Thor says, smiling down at Steve. And that. That is definitely a blush. Bucky feels like he’s swallowing blood. “If you are Steve Rogers, you should take this.” Thor holds out Mjolnir, waiting for Steve to take it.

“I can’t lift that,” Steve says immediately, shaking his head.

“Sure you can. You’ve done it before.”

“Maybe the other me with super strength.”

“No, physical strength has nothing to do with it. Take it.”

Steve doesn’t look convinced but he puts his hand on the hammer. When Thor lets go, Steve holds the hammer easily himself.

“You are him!” Thor exclaims, and pats Steve’s shoulder.

“I don’t understand,” Steve says, but he’s smiling.

“Not all can lift Mjolnir. Not all are worthy of is power. You are though, in any universe it appears.”

Steve’s smile widens and his eyes light up as he inspects the hammer. “Huh.”

“You are very powerful Steve. It’s an honor to meet you again. Now, who would like drinks?”

Scott raises his hand, as does Sam.

“I could definitely use a drink,” Steve says, and he’s being all coy again. Bucky folds his arms across his chest and thinks about taking a knife and cutting Thor’s braid off.

Bucky hears Sam clear his throat and turns. Sam looks at him seriously and raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“You’re really not subtle Barnes.”

An hour later Steve is drinking his second long island. Sam is encouraging it, but Bucky can’t settle himself. He keeps angrily drinking whiskey feeling like he wants to crawl out of his skin every time Thor looks at Steve. Which is often. It feels like his eyes haven’t left Steve since he got off the damn spaceship.

“You feelin’ okay Barnes?” Rocket asks. Rocket looks at him with his quizzical, beady little eyes.

“M’fine.”

“Yeah, you seem it.”

“Whatever.”

“You got beef with the big guy?”

“No. Of course not. Why would I have a problem with the God with the magic hammer and the perfect jawline?”

“Um,” Rocket says.

Bucky takes another drink.

Across the room, Thor says something to Steve, leaning across the table, getting way too close.

“It’s just that you look like you wanna rip his throat out is all,” Rocket says.

Bucky grunts and leaves his seat on the couch. He actually can’t handle this. Plus, Rocket is right. If he doesn’t get some air he’s gonna do something stupid.

It’s just that Bucky has never seen Steve like this with someone before. Not since Carter, and with Carter Steve couldn’t even _be_ like this. He clearly adored her but couldn’t be so forward, because she was his superior and it was war. And here he can be so carefree. Bucky’s never seen it. Steve is a blushing giggling mess. It makes Bucky feel ill. He’s being irrational, he knows, but he’s jealous.

When he goes back inside to get another drink he sees that Thor is making Steve a _third_ drink, and can’t he see that Steve only weighs a hundred pounds? They’re standing at the counter, and Thor makes some joke that Bucky can’t hear but Steve throws his head back and laughs, while at the same time putting his hand on Thor’s bicep. Bucky’s empty glass shatters in his metal hand.

“Seriously man?”

Bucky turns and sees that Sam is right behind him.

“Sorry,” Bucky grunts out and bends down to pick up the pieces.

“You’re really starting to piss me off and this isn’t about the glass,” Sam says.

“What?”

“You’re really leaning into the jealous boyfriend routine. Only problem is: you’re not his boyfriend.”

“I’m very aware of that, thanks for the reminder.”

“You’re the one who turned him down! He can flirt all he wants!”

Sam is defensive and angry and it makes Bucky feel guilty but it’s not as though he can just turn it off.

“It’s more complicated than that and you know it!”

“Is it really? Because he kissed you and you said no so now he’s trying to move on and you’re over here losing your mind. How is that okay?”

“I know, Christ, I fuckin’ know!” Bucky mutters under his breath, delicately picking up broken glass with his metal hand.

“Then knock it off and stop staring daggers at Thor. Let Steve have a little fun. I can practically see steam coming out of your ears.”

The night goes on. Bucky tries to enjoy himself. He is very friendly with Rocket. There’s something about the raccoon that makes him feel understood, and he supposes it’s got something to do with the fact that they were both created in a lab against their will. But there’s only so much banter he can make with Rocket before Bucky gets distracted again by Steve’s deep, thrilled laugh coming from a few feet away. He’s laughing at nearly everything Thor says. Thor is regaling him with stories of Asgard and Bucky wants to strangle the God with his super strong metal hand. If the arm is good for anything it’s clearly for this. At one point Steve gets up with the excuse of getting more ice and instead of sitting back down in his own chair he plants himself in Thor’s lap. Thor seems unfazed by it and continues his story, drinking his Asgardian liquor. Bucky very nearly breaks another glass, but instead listens to Peter show off some of the effects of his suit for Drax.

Steve finishes another drink and then Banner starts talking animatedly with Thor. It’s enough of a lull that Steve gets up and wanders towards Bucky.

“What’s up with you Buck?” Steve asks, swaying a little. To be fair, Bucky is feeling fairly drunk as well, only because he’d had no other outlet for his unbridled rage.

“You look pretty cozy over there,” Bucky spits, and he can feel Sam’s glare on him from across the room, but he doesn’t even care.

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve says and laughs.

“Great. Well have fun.”

“Why are you pissed?”

“I’m not.”

Steve gives him a look like he knows Bucky is full of shit but he walks back over to Thor all the same. As soon as Thor starts speaking to him Steve is all smiles again. Bucky swears that Steve is batting his fucking eyes and playing with his straw, all nervous but most definitely flirting. It’s infuriating.

Bucky goes to the counter to pour himself another drink when he hears it.

“You’re leaving in the morning, aint’cha?” Steve asks.

“Yes, we will have to go in a few hours,” Thor replies.

“Then how about a kiss goodbye?”

A part of Bucky’s heart goes cold. Steve must be very drunk because he’s never been so forward in his life. Bucky feels like his stomach is in knots, like he’s too hot and too cold and his hands are shaking. Is Bucky going to cry? He can’t do this. Not at all. He flees.

He rode here with Steve but it doesn’t matter. He flees the tower and walks all the way home. It takes him nearly two hours. The two hours don’t help settle him. Instead, he spends the entire walk thinking about the fact that Steve probably has his hands all over that giant blond idiot. What if they…? God, Bucky feels sick.

By the time Bucky gets back to the apartment, Sam is waiting for him.

“Where you been?”

“I needed some air.”

“No kidding.”

“I can’t help it, alright? Where is he?”

“I drove him home. We’ll pick up his bike tomorrow.”

“He’s here?”

“Yeah, where’d you think he’d be?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, feeling very small.

“Seriously? I know he was drunk but did you really think he’d sleep with someone he met a few hours ago?”

Bucky’s face goes hot. He really has been acting like a child.

“You were very unfair to him. Do you really think he didn’t notice you at all tonight?”

“I didn’t think he was paying attention to me.”

“Bucky, he is always paying attention to you.”

“He seemed very preoccupied with someone else tonight.”

“You know he’s allowed to be, right? I don’t really give a shit what your reasons are. He told you he was in love with you. He kissed you. You told him no. What is he supposed to do?”

The silence between them is deafening and Sam’s annoyance is palpable. Bucky doesn’t answer. It’s not as though he isn’t in love with Steve. It isn’t as though he doesn’t want Steve desperately. He thinks about it all the time. But he can’t be with Steve because Steve wants Bucky from 1940. He doesn’t want this Bucky that is broken and on bad days doesn’t know which way is up.

“Whatever. He’s in the bedroom. I’m taking off,” Sam says, frustration seeping out of him. He moves past Bucky and shoulders him on his way to the door.

“Sam, you don’t know the half of it, okay?” Bucky says, but it sounds weak coming out.

Sam turns. His eyes are sharp and angry. “Maybe I don’t. You still hurt him. So maybe I really, really don’t care.”

Sam leaves, shutting the door a little too hard on his way out. Bucky hates himself just as much as Sam does.

All Bucky wants to do is sleep, but Steve is already in their bedroom. Bucky swallows hard and makes his way to the bedroom. When he opens the door he sees that there is a light still on and Steve is sketching. He pushes the door all the way open.

“Hey Steve.”

Steve immediately flips the sketchpad shut. “Hey Buck.”

“How you feelin?”

“Still a little drunk.”

“Seems like you had a fun night,” Bucky says, unable to stop himself even though he knows it’s none of his damn business.

“Yeah. I was having a good night. Until I was turned down.”

A white hot flame fills Bucky’s chest. “He what?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Well. Sort of. He said I was too drunk which I’m sure was true. Then he said he couldn’t because of you and all your damn staring. So thanks for that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He said ‘I don’t think that would be wise. Sergeant Barnes has been watching me angrily all night.’” Steve stares at Bucky, eyes hard and angry. “What the hell were you doing?” Steve has sobered up considerably in the two hours Bucky had spent walking home. Probably Sam’s doing. Probably also Steve’s embarrassment’s doing.

“Steve, I’m sorry.”

“Bucky. You can’t do that. I’m an adult, I can decide what I want, okay?” Steve says.

“I know you can Steve. I wasn’t trying to make that decision for you.” Bucky feels so sick. He shuts his eyes and steels his jaw.

“I get that you feel protective over me! I can even appreciate it. But just because _you_ don’t like someone for me doesn’t mean I agree. I can decide for myself.”

Oh, so that’s what Steve thinks is happening. He thinks Bucky is being protective. He thinks Bucky doesn’t think a literal God is good enough for Steve. Well, he’s not exactly wrong. Bucky doesn’t think anyone is good enough for Steve. Steve is in a class all his own.

“I know Stevie. I didn’t mean to spoil your night.”

“You refused me Bucky, and that’s fine, but I still. I still _want_. Okay?”

Bucky thinks about Steve having desire that way. He thinks about Steve having filthy thoughts. He thinks about Steve _wanting_. Christ. “Okay.”

“I’m getting over it, I promise, but you have to let me do it my own way. Thank you for looking out for me, but I’m the only person who can determine things like this.”

“I know Steve,” Bucky repeats. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry just. Just let me do this okay?” Steve’s voice is so determined. He’s got so much fight in him. Bucky nods, trying not to cry because he’s made this fucking bed himself.

“Of course Steve.”

“Okay. Just lay down with me? Please?”

Bucky sighs. He shuts his eyes. There’s no other answer. “Yeah. All right.”

Bucky takes off his jacket and against all judgment his jeans. He turns off all the lights and gets into bed with Steve. Steve curls closer to Bucky, shoving his nose into the crook of Bucky’s neck. Bucky holds him, because he cannot help himself.

“G’night Buck,” Stevie breathes, his long fingers curling in Bucky’s hair and against Bucky’s neck.

“Night Stevie.”

It takes ages for Bucky to fall asleep, but he does eventually. After all of that, he’s still the one falling asleep with Steve in his arms.

**

Bucky wakes up from a dream that was all light pink and eggshell blue. It was Steve all over, and he wakes up hard.

“Oh,” Bucky whispers to himself. He hasn’t been hard in eighty years. He turns over in bed.

He’s alone.

He looks at the clock. Steve is training with Sam for another hour. He won’t be back for at least another two.

Bucky sighs. He contemplates. He squeezes his eyes shut. He contemplates more. It feels strange and foreign to feel this warmth, this want, the physical manifestation of it.

He doesn’t want to waste it.

He rolls back onto his right side, facing the wall and palms himself through his underwear with his flesh hand. The sensation is intense from how long its been. Bucky lets out a whimper and then immediately bites down on his metal knuckles.

Bucky takes a deep breath. He imagines their apartment from before, with the shitty radio and the fire escape where Bucky used to sit and smoke. He imagines the crack in the ceiling and the smell of shaving cream. He imagines he’s got two flesh arms and has his hair gelled back real nice.

He imagines that Steve is sitting on the sofa, hands covered in charcoal from his pencils. Bucky takes the sketchbook out of Steve’s hands and throws it onto the ground. He straddles Steve but is careful not to crush him into the back of the sofa.

_What’re you doin’ Buck?_ Steve asks.

_What’s it look like you little punk?_

_Well whatever it is just do it already._

_Shut up, smart ass._

_Make me._

So he does. He kisses Steve, nips at his bottom lip a little. Steve smiles into it, and God if that isn’t nice. Bucky pulls away to look at Steve’s smile. Breaking the kiss proves difficult but seeing Steve’s smile is glorious.

Steve puts his hand on Bucky’s belt and begins to undo the buckle. With his other hand he pulls Bucky down by his suspenders to kiss him again, and then down his neck. Steve unzips Bucky’s pants and takes Bucky in his hand. Bucky pushes his forehead into Steve’s neck. _Oh Christ Steve,_ Bucky whispers.

It doesn’t take much. Steve strokes Bucky up and down, bites down at the tender part of Bucky’s neck, and then Bucky’s falling apart.

“Oh God, Steve,” Bucky says, and pushes his face into the pillows. He rocks himself through it and then catches his breath. He can’t believe he’s just done that. He laughs. He doesn’t feel guilty like he thought he would.

**

Bucky pushes the take out around his plate with a little plastic fork. He longs for a cigarette. He’s started the habit back up after the last few weeks, feeling restless with how Steve looks at him sometimes, and especially after the little fantasy he allowed himself a couple weeks back.

“What’s up Buck?” Steve asks, mouth still filled with orange chicken.

“Nothin’. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Bucky speaks again before he can lose his nerve. “Do you still like me?”

“What?” Steve demands. “Of course I do.”

“You can say if you don’t.”

“Why would you think I didn’t?”

“Steve, we don’t have to act like I’m the same before.”

Steve sighs and puts his plate down. “We don’t have to act like you’re the same. You’re different. That’s true. But different ain’t bad.”

“It’s just. I know I used to be funny. Charming. Easy to get along with. I used to be easy to spend time with. I know I’m not easy anymore.”

“Bucky, I don’t give a shit about funny or charming or quick witted. You still are those things, maybe not as often as you used to be, but that’s besides the point. I loved you for all that but most importantly because you are _good_. Fuck all the other shit, you’re good at the very core of you. Always were. Always have been.”

Bucky feels a little floored, and a little guilty like he’d been fishing for compliments. Still, it’s nice to hear. His face feels warm. “Oh,” he says softly.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. Most people, if they went through what you did, wouldn’t be able to string three words together. Of _course_ I still like you.”

“Thank you Steve,” Bucky says, and picks up his fork again.

“Now that that’s settled, pass me the dumplings,” Steve says, mouth pulling up into a grin.

**

Steve starts school and is gone more often than not. He gets up early to train and gets back late, palms covered in charcoal and sometimes his face has flecks of paint across his it.

He makes friends and every once in a while a stranger will appear in Bucky’s kitchen. They’re all very polite and Steve always makes sure it’s okay before someone new comes into the apartment. Bucky never minds. He had expected it. It’s very easy for people to love Steve. He makes a lot of friends.

It isn’t a problem until Steve starts to use his phone less around Bucky when they watch movies in the evening. Sometimes though, he’ll see Steve smirk at a text, or, even worse, watch his face go red at a new message. Bucky knows the messages aren’t from Sam or Peter or anyone familiar. They’re from someone new. Bucky doesn’t ask about it. He doesn’t think he wants to know.

**

Bucky switches tabs on the laptop. He opens up his playlist and shuts his eyes. Breathes in and out. He’s just about to relax. Then his headphones are ripped off his ears.

He turns, ready for a fight, when he sees Sam with his arms folded across his chest. Sam raises one eyebrow.

“What?” Bucky demands, tight and terse.

“Seriously dude? Taylor Swift again? And…dude, dude! I’m sorry, It’s Hey Stephen,” Sam says, a look of horror on his face. “Then the entirety of Red? The Deluxe Edition. You are unwell man.”

“Leave me alone,” Bucky mumbles. Sam makes fun of most of Bucky’s music tastes, but only in theory. Sam likes pop music just as much as the next sane human with two ears and a heart. But this spiral into Taylor Swift’s best albums isn’t Bucky’s fault. The first time he opened Spotify he listened to all the most popular artists because they were the first ones he saw, Bucky doesn’t think he should be held accountable for that. Besides, pop music is a god damn delight.

“What did he do this time?”

“He didn’t do anything.”

“Bucky, what happened?”

“Nothing!”

“Because that very pouty tone really expresses that.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. He has his arms across his chest and his chin down like a sulky teenager trying to wrangle his feelings on his first crush. He supposes that is an accurate depiction.

“I still love him,” Bucky finally spits out, the words heavy between his teeth.

Sam scoffs, tilts his head to the side, and then narrows his eyes at Bucky. “No fuckin’ shit.”

“Well what do you want me to say?!” Bucky demands. He nearly throws his desk over in frustration.

“I don’t want you to say anything besides the truth. I’ve just been waiting for you to say that for ages now.”

Bucky sighs. He feels so defeated. Of course. It doesn’t matter what year it is, or what universe. Apparently he’s always in love with Steve Rogers. At this point he’s got no choice. “So everyone knows?”

“It isn’t exactly difficult to decipher. Also, Bucky, you need to understand that he loves you too.”

“Sam, he thinks he does, but he doesn’t know who I am.”

“You say that, but what evidence do you have?”

“He hasn’t even been to fucking war Sam! He has no idea what it’s like to kill! He’s got no idea what it’s like to bash someone’s face in because you’re afraid, okay? He has no idea what it’s like to act out unspeakable things and not have any control but recall every. Fucking. Second.”

Bucky’s mouth is a hard line. He grinds down on his teeth. Sam doesn’t even bat an eye.

“Are you done?” Sam asks.

“No! He’s a baby Sam! He’s barely twenty two. He’s over thirteen younger than me, how completely fucked would that be?”

“Bucky, you’re maybe thirty five or thirty six, but that’s counting all the times you were awake and brainwashed. That’s counting years of war, a war that you remember. That’s counting years in cyro. Bucky…you hardly had a life after age twenty three. Which is almost how old he is now.”

“I still lived through all that. I still did so many fucked up things--” Bucky begins, but Sam cuts him off.

“I know what you did, dumbass. We all know what you did. My point is that you did not experience life properly. You have been aging but you haven’t been _growing_. You’re about the same age as Steve.”

Bucky is shaking his head, but he’s grinding his teeth, annoyed that Sam is right. “It just doesn’t feel right. I still knew him after.”

“You’re overthinking. In fact, you’re thinking of excuses.” 

“Sam, he’s the best person I’ve ever known, and I’m _this_!” Bucky finally forces out. He bites down on his bottom lip, feeling raw and splayed out.

“Dramatic as always, I see. Bucky, if you think he’s _that_ good, and he wants you, don’t you think there must be something redeeming about you?”

“I just wanna be good enough for him.”

Sam sighs heavily and leans against the wall. “You’re still you. You’re different, but you’re still you. It’s been months Bucky. He hasn’t gone runnin’ has he?”

“I know he knows me. He’s good at reminding me. He’s…he knows what I need before I know. But I don’t want him to ever know how bad they fucked me up,” Bucky says, and his voice breaks.

“He thinks you hate him,” Sam blurts, and he looks angry.

“What?” Bucky demands.

“You won’t look him in the eye. You look at him like you want him gone, like you resent the very fact that he’s here at all.”

“That’s not. That’s not why. I don’t want him gone, I want him to understand that I’m not the same! And he’s creating a life here, one that I don’t know how to be a part of. It’s good for him, and I’m happy for him but I just feel so out of place.”

“Tell him that, not me. And don’t look at me like that. He’s still my best friend too, even when he’s twenty two and one fifty smaller,” Sam says, hard and determined.

“He thinks I _hate_ him?” Bucky feels ill just saying it.

“He thinks you’re at the very least angry with him.”

“Fuck,” Bucky says, and Sam laughs.

“Yeah, so if you’re done being a dramatic ass about the whole thing, you should probably talk to the man who time traveled 80 years to be with you. Just sayin’.”

**

Bucky had agreed to meet Steve for lunch in Astoria. There’s a little bagel place that Bucky likes. They put so much cream cheese on the bagels that it’s almost difficult to eat them. It’s perfect.

When Bucky walks through the door of the shop he sees Steve sitting at a small table, but he isn’t alone. There’s a man across from him. His skin is tanned and his hands are stained with red paint. He’s got a cigarette tucked behind one ear, and his dark hair is pulled back loosely. He’s got a beard, and he’s laughing at something Steve has just said while holding his coffee cup.

Bucky is put off by him immediately.

He walks over to the table and tries for a smile.

“Hey Buck!” Steve says. “This is Daniel.”

Daniel turns in his chair. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. He holds out a hand for Bucky to take. Bucky holds out his flesh hand and shakes the hand offered.

“Nice to meet you,” he says. He’s probably about twenty five. Bucky thinks of four ways he can incapacitate him in a matter of ten seconds and refrains from acting on any of them. “I’d love to stay, but I’m about to be late for class. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Daniel asks, turning his gaze back to Steve.

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” Daniel says. He grabs his bag and then heads out the door, a stupid smile plastered on his face as he waves goodbye to Steve. Bucky detests all of it.

Once Daniel is out of the shop Bucky takes his chair and raises an eyebrow at Steve.

“What?”

“Who was that?”

“I think I just introduced you,” Steve says, taking a sip of coffee.

“Uh huh. I thought I was meeting you for lunch.”

“You are, he followed me here after class, he had questions. We’re working on a project together.”

“Sure. And what’s tomorrow?”

“We’re going on a date,” Steve says matter-of-factly. He keeps his eyes locked on Bucky. His cheeks go a little pink, but aside from that he’s unfazed.

“Right,” Bucky says, mouth feeling dry and stomach feeling flipped over. He’s wondering if he’ll be able to keep anything down. “That’s too bad, ‘cause that guy kind of looks like an asshole.”

Steve laughs. “Sure he does, Buck.”

**

Bucky opens his journal for the third time that day. His mind seems to be running too fast. He’s been writing so much lately, and he’s surprised by all of it. When he reads it back, it doesn’t seem like something that could have come from him. It’s just that Steve has been gone a lot and he suspects that Steve does not want to see him. He tries not to wonder how his date with Daniel had gone. And maybe Steve’s just keeping busy, but Bucky doesn’t think he’s naïve enough to believe that. Bucky has treated him so poorly. He’s wanted things to go back to how they were in 1940, despite the fact that they both know what the other had wanted. It’s not 1940. It’s been eighty years. Bucky needs to stop being such a coward. He’s spent decades being a coward.

He puts pen to paper and thinks about what he’d like to say.

**

Steve gets back from his run. It’s still a little incredible that he can run now and not keel over with an asthma attack. It’s not like the other Steve, who could run for miles and miles at lightning speed and never break a sweat. This Steve is just regular old Steve Rogers, small and skinny, but now thanks to modern medicine, is growing a bit of muscle and is able to almost keep up with Sam on his runs now if he works real hard. Training with Captain America will do that to a kid.

Steve wipes his face with his t-shirt. He’s got freckles all across his nose and shoulders from the sun. Bucky wants him terribly.

“Hey Steve,” Bucky says, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

“Hey,” Steve breathes. He gets water out of the fridge. “What’s up?”

“I was thinkin’. Do you wanna hang outside on the balcony with me? I was gonna have a beer.”

“I have some work to do, but yeah. Open one for me.” Steve smiles. “I need to shower first though. I’m gross.”

Bucky nods, and hates himself a little for letting his eyes wander as Steve removes his shirt on his way to the bathroom.

Steve comes out of the bathroom twenty minutes later. He’s dressed in jeans and a blue shirt with still damp hair. He’s impossibly adorable, the way he unlocks his phone and punches his lockscreen code in not with his thumb, but instead with his index finger, moving slow, still getting used to it after five months. Bucky is sure that all the kids at school make fun of Steve for that.

Steve picks up the beer Bucky opened for him. He nods appreciatively. Bucky thinks this is a plus side to this Steve: this Steve can get drunk real easy if he wants.

They walk out onto the balcony. Bucky has a small patch of flowers growing in the planters, as well as a tomato plant. Steve sits down in one of their hard plastic chairs. Bucky never bothered to get better ones, and Steve doesn’t seem to care.

Steve sets his beer down and gives Bucky a small smile. He’s all coy, and it hurts, because this Steve should be able to say anything to Bucky without batting an eye.

“Do you like it here?” Bucky asks.

“I do. I need glasses and a hearing aid but I guess I always did and I’m doing far better than I ever was before,” Steve says, laughing at himself a little. “But seriously? I do. It took some getting used to, but this place is better. He said it would be.”

“He?”

“ _I_ said. _I_ said it’d be better.”

“So you agree with yourself?”

“Yeah. I do. I like being here. With you.”

Bucky smiles. “Even with this me?”

“Especially with this you, Bucky,” Steve says, and it’s terribly soft.

“Could I ask you somethin’?” Bucky says, and feels his throat close up. He tries to hear Sam in his head. He tries to remind himself that this is the same Steve that held him through every nightmare he’s had over the last five months. This Steve that he loved first, and most purely.

“Of course Buck.”

“That first night, when you got here. Do you still feel the same as you did then?”

Steve sighs. He takes a pull off his beer bottle. “If I’m being completely honest?”

Bucky’s heart sinks. “Yeah.”

“How I felt then, it’s even worse now. But, I’m gonna get past it Bucky. I promise. I’ll get over it, so don’t worry about me none.”

Bucky stops breathing for a moment. “It’s worse now?”

“Yeah. I wish it weren’t. But it is. I’m sorry. But like I said, I’ll get over it. I will. You’re my best friend. That’s the most important thing.” Steve takes another drink. He doesn’t look at Bucky when he talks.

The sun is still high in the sky. The sky is all blue and the weather is warm. Bucky leans forward on his elbows.

“God damn Stevie. God damn.”

“Look Buck, I know,” Steve starts, his voice deep and dark and lovely. “I know! I’m not trying to--” Steve starts, but Bucky takes Steve’s hand in his own, and it stops Steve dead.

Bucky holds Steve’s one hand in both of his, one flesh one metal, and kisses Steve’s knuckles. Steve’s breath hitches.

“I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya,” Bucky starts, hoping to God he’s doing this proper. “I want to do all the things I couldn’t do before with you. I wanna take you to the movies, where we get the popcorn that costs more than a fuckin’ house now. I wanna take you dancing, even though you’re absolute shit at it. I wanna…I wanna kiss you real sweet at the end of the night. Christ, I just wanna hold your fuckin’ hand,” Bucky admits, feeling frightened like he hasn’t since Steve first went through with the whole time travelling business and disappeared before Bucky’s eyes.

Steve is still silent, but is watching Bucky carefully. He’s blushing something fierce, face all red and blotches forming down his neck. It makes Bucky hungry.

Bucky leans down and puts his mouth to Steve’s. Steve’s mouth is soft and warm. Bucky pulls away, the kiss perfectly chaste. He looks at Steve to gauge his reaction, and Steve’s chest is heaving, and his eyes are dark and so terribly blue. His brows are pulled together in concentration. Bucky loves him.

“Is this okay?” Bucky asks. He leans back in his chair.

Steve is out of his own chair almost instantly. The chair squeals on the concrete when Steve pushes it away from his body. He stands, then grabs Bucky, has a hand on either side of Bucky’s face. Then he’s kissing Bucky all over. On his chin, his mouth, his cheek, his nose. It’s messy and so sweet Bucky’s teeth ache. Bucky smiles and wraps his arms around Steve’s waist. Steve presses his mouth to Bucky’s, hard and incessant. He is both chaste and wildly eager. Bucky laughs lightly, feeling light and wonderful.

“Stevie, slow down, open your mouth a little. Ain’t you ever kissed anyone before?” Bucky teases, but kisses the side of Steve’s jaw so he knows Bucky doesn’t mind in the slightest.

“No, not in a real long time,” Steve admits. Maybe the date with Daniel didn’t go so well. But Steve takes Bucky’s advice. He parts his lips a little when he kisses Bucky again, and Bucky takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Steve makes a small whimpering noise and runs a hand through Bucky’s hair, then pulls a little, and Bucky finds himself whimpering too.

Bucky pulls away. He smiles at Steve, and Steve’s whole face lights up.

“I thought I was gonna have to live off that one small kiss where you pushed me away. I thought I was gonna have to…just live with that.”

“Honey, I’m sorry,” Bucky says. “I was scared. I was scared of you,” Bucky admits.

“Scared of me?” Steve shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“I was scared that because I’m not the same you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t like me. You were always so much better than me anyway. Now it’s so much more obvious.” Bucky shrugs.

Steve’s shaking his head furiously now, and he’s angry, but he’s kissing Bucky again. He pushes his forehead against Bucky’s. “You’re still you. I know you don’t believe me but you are. How could I not want you?” Steve sighs, and his breath his warm and sweet against Bucky’s cheek. “I’ll let you in on a secret.” Steve lowers his voice and puts his lips to Bucky’s ear. “I like this you even more.”

Bucky scoffs but tightens his grip around Steve’s waist. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. You don’t give a fuck about nothin’, it’s hot as hell Buck.”

Bucky laughs. “Yeah, when you got scrambled eggs for brains it’s hard to care about anything.”

“No, no, you don’t care what anyone thinks. You used to be so vain it made me wanna sock you. I mean, it was endearing, and you weren’t _wrong_ to know how pretty you were, but _still_.”

“Is this about my hair again? You keep teasing me about my long hair. I like my hair, screw you Stevie,” Bucky teases.

“No, I like your hair too.” Steve kisses Bucky again, then whispers, “I love you so much. There’s this innocence to you Buck. You don’t see it because you only see the pain, but Bucky, you are so good.”

“Innocent?” Bucky nearly starts crying on the spot.

“Yes. Like everything is brand new to you. You spent so long not feeling anything that now you feel everything so hugely. I see you plain as day, just like always. It can’t be easy to feel so much.”

Bucky looks up at Steve. Bucky is still sitting, but Steve is standing, holding Bucky’s face in his hands. “Jesus Stevie. If you don’t know by now. I love you baby. I have since always. And I got a confession too.”

“What’s that?”

“I almost killed you once, and right before I could, you repeated to me what I told you the day of your mother’s funeral. And I didn’t see him, I didn’t see the big guy. I saw you.”

“You for real?”

Bucky laughs a little. “Yeah. Yeah, it was just you.”

Steve crawls into Bucky’s lap. If it were anyone else it never would have worked, but Steve is small enough to contort his body into the chair, straddle Bucky, and wrap his arms around Bucky’s neck.

“I’m so sorry for all of it,” Steve says, and Bucky can’t understand what Steve is talking about, he hasn’t done anything wrong, but Steve is kissing him again, and Steve is everywhere, so Bucky just kisses back, like he’s wanted to do for over a century.

Steve is turning eager again, moving spastic and heated against Bucky. Bucky runs his metal hand through Steve’s hair. “Stevie, slow down.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry Buck. I don’t wanna wait, I’ve waited my whole life.” Steve is rambling, his hands moving quick through Bucky’s hair, over his shoulders, then down his chest. Bucky is a little overwhelmed but lets it happen.

“No, not like that Steve. I mean, _slow down_.” Bucky puts his hand against the back of Steve’s head, then pulls him forward and kisses Steve slow and sweet like he’s always wanted to. Steve opens his mouth and Bucky slides his tongue into Steve’s mouth. Steve inhales sharply, but then groans.

“Um,” Steve says, breathing heavy. Bucky laughs.

“You wanna go inside?”

“Yes please.”

“Sounds good, pal,” Bucky says. He puts his hands under Steve’s thighs and then stands, holding Steve in his arms. Steve gasps, then leans his forehead into Bucky’s shoulder. He laughs.

“I would be embarrassed if I wasn’t so damn turned on right now.”

“No need to be embarrassed, I clearly can’t control myself around you.”

Bucky carries Steve inside, and Steve has buried his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck.

“You smell just the same,” Steve says, kissing up Bucky’s neck.

“Did I smell different before?”

“No it’s just, you still smell like _you_. I remember from when we used to share a bed.”

“Did I ever change so much?”

“Yes and no. I just wanted you to know,” Steve says, and Bucky puts him back down on the ground. They’re in the bedroom now, the same bedroom where the Steve who was twelve years older than this one kissed Bucky just the once.

Steve pushes Bucky’s shoulder just hard enough that Bucky stumbles backwards, and if he’s playing like Steve pushed him hard enough to actually make him fall back, neither one says anything.

Bucky falls back onto the mattress, and Steve crawls on top of him. He kisses Bucky all wicked and sweet at the same time.

“How do you want me?” Bucky asks.

Steve’s face turns absolutely pink. “I honestly have no idea, Buck,” he admits.

“Well tell me what you want right now,” Bucky says. He has a bit of a thrill going down his spine, knowing now that he’s Steve’s first. He doesn’t know for sure about the other Steve, but that isn’t really important because that’s not the Steve that’s right in front of him.

“I wanna touch you,” Steve says. He’s biting down on his bottom lip and looking down at Bucky with giant baby blues.

“Then do it,” Bucky says, surprising himself. “I’ve only been waiting a century.”

Steve doesn’t need any more convincing. He runs a hand over Bucky’s jawline, but soon enough is running his hand down Bucky’s chest, then sneaks it up under Bucky’s shirt. Bucky shivers, and takes the shirt off. Steve’s palms land on his bare shoulders.

“Wait, let me take this off,” Bucky says, suddenly scared about his arm. He’s always had a strange relationship with the prosthetic in all its forms, but he can’t possibly risk anything happening with Steve, this first time.

“You can leave it. I know you can feel with this one.” Steve says, taking the metal hand in his own.

“Yeah, I can.”

When he confirms, Steve kisses the fingertips of the metal hand. “Then leave it on. I wanna touch all of you, Buck.”

Steve kisses Bucky’s neck, then down farther and farther until Bucky is whining in the back of his throat. Steve unzips Bucky’s jeans, then palms Bucky through his underwear. Bucky gasps.

“Jesus Steve, don’t be such a tease.”

“Can’t help it, I like to hear you like this.”

Steve is bright red, but he’s clearly enjoying himself too much. Bucky has to remedy that.

“You stupid fuckin’ punk. Make me say your name then, huh?”

Steve laughs, all nervous and coy, but Bucky knows he likes this.

“Geez, Buck, you got high expectations for my first time and all.”

“Well don’t start shit you ain’t prepared to finish then. ‘Sides, it’s you, it won’t take much, I promise you.”

Steve runs a shaky hand through Bucky’s hair, then, starts pushing Bucky’s underwear off his hips.  
“Up,” Steve commands, and it’s as direct as his Captain Asshole voice, though this Steve hasn’t the slightest what that would mean.

“Sir, yes sir,” Bucky jokes, and his Steve laughs, like he gets the joke, and honestly, maybe he does.

Bucky shuts up real quick though, because suddenly he’s naked in front of Steve. Steve is still fully dressed, and there’s no way that’s fair, so Bucky pulls at Steve’s shirt. He lets his fingers sneak up under the fabric and run over Steve’s torso.

Steve makes a confused, pained sound and Bucky removes his hand.

“Baby, did I hurt you?”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Steve says. He was so eager moments ago, and now he’s retracting into himself. Bucky doesn’t like it.

“Honey, what is it?”

“Nothin’ Buck.”

“No, what is it?” Bucky asks, and then notices that Steve’s face is going all red, and it’s not the pretty blushy kind, he’s embarrassed. Steve bites the inside of his cheek and then looks away from Bucky. _Oh._

Bucky rolls over so that Steve is on his back. He lets out a soft _oof_ with the change of positions but still clings to Bucky. Bucky pushes Steve into the pillows, gently as he can, and then puts his lips to the shell of Steve’s ear.

“You got no idea what you do to me, Steve.”

Steve laughs humorlessly. “Come on, Buck.”

“Look at me, sweetheart.”

It takes a moment, but Steve does look at Bucky. “You always were so handsome Bucky,” he says, his face so serious, and Bucky can’t have that, not at all. Bucky kisses Steve’s neck, which earns him a soft gasp.

“You wanna know all the things about you that drive me crazy?”

“Bucky, seriously, stop it,” Steve whispers, but he still groans when Bucky bites gently at his clavicle.

“I’m only being honest. Let me be honest with you. I never got to say before,” Bucky says into Steve’s skin. Steve sighs deeply but doesn’t say anything else. “Your eyes are fuckin’ killer, but you already knew that.” Bucky runs a hand through Steve’s hair.

“Buck--”

“And that mouth, Jesus Christ, the things I’ve thought about that pretty mouth doin’. Plus you never shut the hell up.”

This gets a laugh out of Steve, and Bucky kisses him, to prove his point.

“And I know I never told you about your hands.” Bucky picks up Steve’s left hand and kisses the knuckles, then his palm. “These artist’s fingers. The things I’ve dreamt up Stevie, I swear.”

Bucky leans down to kiss Steve’s throat. He works his way up and kisses him lightly, smiling as he does so. “Could you say my name?”

“Bucky?” Steve offers, voice going all low with want.

“Yeah, your voice. Your voice is gorgeous. All warm and deep.” Bucky laughs, realizing what he’s said. He hadn’t even meant it to be that dirty.

Bucky sneaks his hand up Steve’s shirt while he’s distracted and cups his ribcage with his flesh hand. “Then there’s your waist to think about.”

“Okay, Bucky I get it!” Steve exclaims. He’s smiling again, still red, but there’s a red blush going all the way down his neck, probably painted across his chest too.

“Can I see you then?”

“Yeah fine, you can see me.”

Steve pulls his shirt off and lets it fall somewhere on the floor.

“See Steve, just what I was talking about. All sharp edges and bright colors. You’re unbelievable.”

“Buck. Please,” Steve says, and he’s embarrassed again but he kisses Bucky all hungry and beautiful.

“I’ll convince you yet, Stevie,” Bucky replies, his mouth pressed to Steve’s jaw. And he plans to do just that. Steve is the most beautiful creature he’s ever had the honor of seeing. He’s gonna make him see it. Bucky runs his fingers down to Steve’s zipper, and pulls it down. He unbuttons the jeans and Steve gasps all pretty into Bucky’s mouth. “You okay?”

“Better than.”

Steve is out of all his clothes and breathing heavy. He pushes a strand of hair back behind Bucky’s ear, then pushes Bucky’s shoulder back and pushes Bucky onto his back.

“You sure?”

“Can I touch you?” Steve asks.

Bucky laughs; can’t help it. As if Steve has to ask. “Of course.”

So Steve reaches down between them. 

Bucky whimpers. He says Steve’s name. He digs his fingers into Steve’s back, probably too hard and he’s afraid he’s gonna bruise Steve, but Steve makes no complaint, only drags his mouth down Bucky’s neck and then up his jawline. Bucky loses himself in Steve’s hands, cries out just the once. He doesn’t even mind what he sounds like.

Steve smiles down at him. He laughs a little, and Bucky notices Steve’s hands are shaking a little. “Come here Steve.”

Bucky touches Steve like he’s wanted to forever. He can’t believe he’s allowed to do this.

He reaches up with his metal hand and cups Steve’s face. Steve leans into the touch all sweet, and Bucky’s chest tightens. Steve stutters and comes, then collapses across Bucky’s chest. He laughs again and kisses Bucky’s shoulder.

When Steve finally rolls off of Bucky, he’s grinning like a lunatic. He puts his hand with his too long beautiful fingers over his mouth, trying to cover his idiotic smile. He’s still bright red.

“What’s with you?”

A real and true _giggle_ escapes out of Steve. “I just had sex with you.”

“Yeah, is that a problem?”

“No, not at all. It was incredible, obviously, but I. I just had sex with you. Bucky.”

“I sort of thought that was the point,” Bucky says, poking Steve in his side.

“I know, I know, I just can’t believe it.” Steve laughs again. “I can’t believe you wanted me like that.”

“I did. And I do. All over again ‘cause you’re being so damn cute.”

“Shut up,” Steve says, and pulls the blankets over his head.

**

After, Bucky cooks for Steve. Steve sits at the kitchen table, sketching an outline of Bucky’s profile. Bucky cuts mushrooms and onions and keeps stealing glances at Steve. Their eyes meet twice and they smile at each other from across the room.

Steve eats in relative silence. He keeps looking up from his plate and smiling at Bucky, like he simply can’t contain his happiness. It makes Bucky want to cry a little, but instead he reaches out across the table and takes Steve’s hand in his. He smiles back. They eat the rest of their meal with their fingers laced together.

When Steve is finished eating and has put his sketchbook aside he takes off his glasses and runs a hand through his hair. He’s too lovely, the way he moves around the kitchen like he finally feels that he belongs there. _Did I do that?_ Bucky wonders. He hopes so. God he hopes so.

They go to bed early. Bucky imagines they are both exhausted with the day’s events. Steve gets into bed in just a t-shirt and his underwear. He pushes his hair out of his eyes and smiles at Bucky, an invitation to join him.

Bucky follows. He turns off the lights and climbs into bed with Steve. It’s no longer just the other Steve’s bed that Bucky had continued to sleep in. Now it’s _their_ bed. The thought sends a shiver through Bucky. He wraps his arms around Steve and they fall asleep quickly and easily, which hasn’t happened for Bucky in months. Maybe not since before he was turned to dust.

When Bucky wakes again, it’s the middle of the night. He can tell from how the moon is hitting the blinds. Steve is farther away from him now, his body needing to stretch out in sleep. He’s perfect. His chest rises and falls, and Bucky tries to match his breathing with Steve’s.

It’s the middle of the night. Steve’s bare thigh is pressing against Bucky’s left leg.

Bucky wants Steve now so badly he can hardly breathe.

He feels a little bad doing it, but Bucky kisses the side of Steve’s face. Steve’s eyes flutter open. He clears his throat.

“Everything okay?” Steve asks in the dark.

“It’s all fine. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I woke you. I shouldn’t have,” Bucky says, and he keeps cutting himself off because finishing the sentence sounds insane. _Sorry I woke you up because I wanted you so badly my ribs hurt._

“It’s okay. What’s going on?” Steve rubs the sleep from his eyes. It’s cute and earnest and Bucky allows himself to just let go and kiss Steve fully. He presses Steve back down into the mattress. Steve seems fine with it, because he laughs into the kiss, which warms Bucky’s heart terribly.

Steve kisses back. He’s sweet, but he’s wicked too. He licks his way into Bucky’s mouth and it’s funny, because just a few hours ago Bucky had to remind him to open his mouth a little.

Steve brings a hand up to Bucky’s side. He runs a hand down Bucky’s body, letting his hand fall on Bucky’s thigh. He squeezes a bit and Bucky whimpers into the touch, into the kiss.

Bucky removes Steve’s shirt. He moves down. He kisses Steve’s jaw, then his neck for a while, then down his ribcage and sucks a mark onto his hipbone. Steve gasps and whines, all high pitched and lovely. He sneaks a hand down and palms Steve through his underwear and when Steve gasps Bucky smiles. He’s finally done something right.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” Bucky says against Steve’s skin.

“Jesus Buck,” Steve barely makes out. He runs a hand through Bucky’s hair. “You’re killin’ me, I swear.”

Bucky leans back down and does the impossible: he mouths at Steve through his underwear, the cotton thick on his tongue. Steve bucks his hips and Bucky smiles to himself.

“Oh God, Buck _please_ ,” Steve begs, and it doesn’t take much to convince Bucky. He pulls Steve’s clothes all off and takes Steve in his mouth. Bucky groans at the same time Steve does.

It’s overwhelming. All of it. This is his Steve he’s got pressed into his mouth. This is his Steve that’s making the unspeakable noises above him. This is Steve, small and brave, cunning and clever, that says Bucky’s name like a prayer when he bucks his hips up again, involuntarily.

This is Steve who almost died of pneumonia back in October, his body refusing to get better. This is the Steve who laughed all high pitched at a shitty advertisement on the radio. This is Steve who has rocked Bucky back to sleep after another nightmare about the war. About every war. He’s held him through all of them. Bucky pushes deeper, so his nose is pressed to Steve’s skinny stomach. He moans into it. God.

Bucky finds himself rutting into the mattress as he runs his tongue down Steve. He feels absolutely filthy, but he can’t help himself. He’s so in love he can’t stop. He thinks that if it always lands him here, with this ending, he would do it all over again. All of it, every war. Every fight. Every single pain. It’s worth it. Maybe that’s why the other Steve agreed to go back. And fuck. He puts his flesh hand against Steve’s ribcage and the metal hand against his hip, holding him and rocking him through it when he comes with Bucky’s name ripped from his lips.

Bucky can’t help it. He pushes himself into the mattress, once, twice, by the fifth time he’s coming, still kissing at Steve’s hip even after he’s gone soft and quiet.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve whispers. Bucky would be embarrassed, thinks maybe he should be, but he’s not. He picks himself up from the sheets and finds Steve. He kisses him hard.

“I love you so much,” Bucky says, not for the first time, but it feels like it might as well be.

“Come here,” Steve says. He takes Bucky’s face and holds him to his chest. Bucky’s ear is right on top of Steve’s heart. It’s hammering, but not in a worrisome way. Just a way that lets Bucky knows he’s alive and warm and safe.

Bucky holds onto Steve’s middle. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to not fall apart, but does anyway. It just feels like too much, getting everything he’s ever wanted. Steve hushes him, runs his hands through his hair, and says his name gently.

**

They don’t leave the apartment for three days. Steve skips a whole day of classes and blows off a training session with Sam, which inevitably means Sam ends up knocking on their door the third day, arms folded across his chest.

Bucky almost shuts the door immediately on Sam, because the knowing look on his face is absolutely awful.

“What?” Bucky demands.

“That isn’t very polite Barnes. Not even gonna invite me in?”

Bucky rolls his eyes but leaves the door open and walks back into the kitchen where Steve is still doing dishes from dinner.

“Hey Rogers, you ever gonna leave this apartment? I would say congrats but I can already tell this is going to be insufferable,” Sam says. Sam is smiling smugly at both of them. Bucky runs a hand down his face and Steve’s ears start to go pink.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks.

“You’ve never so much as been more than five minutes early for training, let alone canceled completely. You must have had a really good reason for not showing. Like a really, really good reason.”

“Wilson, please stop talking,” Bucky begs, but Sam just starts laughing and helps himself to some of the leftovers still sitting on the table.

“You’re right, this is going to be insufferable,” Steve says, and goes back to the dishes while Sam sits down at the table.

Bucky looks at the both of them as they start to banter. He goes to the living room and opens a window. He turns on the TV. He looks around the room. He listens to the soft, kind voices floating in from the kitchen. He can’t believe how lucky he got.

_Hey Stephen, why are people always leaving_ _  
I think you and I should stay the same._

Hey Stephen, Taylor Swift

**Author's Note:**

> please understand, i've seen most marvel movies but do not remember/could not possibly recall all of them properly. if things are off or if i've like, really misremembered things i apologize, i'm here for the historical gay romance of it all. 
> 
> great news, this is part of a series. a series in which i write incredibly silly things like bucky, steve, and sam attending carly rae jepsen concerts and bucky getting really into doing face masks. sorry if you've read my other fics and have come here hoping for some of my typical sad gay yearning. this is not that, this is.....absurd. 
> 
> come yell w/ me @ dykecrowleys on tumblr !!


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